


Who Wants to Live Forever?

by Heavy Henry (pelicanna)



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: 1980s, Aged-Up Yuri Plisetsky, Alternate Universe - Highlander Fusion, Angst, BAMF Katsuki Yuuri (eventually), BAMF Victor Nikiforov, Bartender Katsuki Yuuri, Christophe Giacometti & Victor Nikiforov Friendship, Depressed Victor Nikiforov, M/M, Major Character Injury, Smut, Sort Of, Swordfighting, Temporary Character Death, i can't believe that's a tag, immortal character, problem drinking
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-16
Updated: 2019-05-13
Packaged: 2019-09-20 10:18:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 15
Words: 38,886
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17020824
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pelicanna/pseuds/Heavy%20Henry
Summary: The young man swallows visibly, adam’s apple bobbing. He sets down the box he’s carrying and pushes up his glasses. He looks everywhere but at Viktor, eyes darting like he’s seeking an escape. Viktor props his elbows on the bar and laces his fingers together, resting his chin on the knuckles.”So, come here often?” He flutters his eyelids, half expecting his company to bolt and run.Somehow it has the opposite effect. The bartender coughs out a laugh, and shakes his head wryly. “Isn’t that my line?””No, you’re supposed to ask what I’m having. I believe that you and all of your regular patrons are also supposed to loudly and unanimously greet me by name.”The bartender has been drying the same glass for much longer than necessary. The cloth squeaks against the rim. He looks baffled for a moment, then his face clears, brow lifting, “Oh. Got it. Sorry, I don’t watch much TV. Try it again, lets see if I get it right.”The Highlander AU that no one asked for.





	1. Who Wants to Live Forever?

**Author's Note:**

> So, uh, I should be writing a sweet and adorkable Mila/Sara thing (I have not abandoned it, I just got distracted by swords), but now I'm writing a Highlander AU, I guess. I can't imagine there's a ton of crossover in those two fandoms, so see the end notes for a primer. or, just watch the 90s TV series on Hulu. In the spirit of the Highlander canon (and because I am old), I have chosen to set this in 1985.
> 
> Also, because this is a Highlander AU, there will be sword fighting, deaths (with varying degrees of permanence), and occasional be-headings. I regret nothing.
> 
> I'm shouting into the void: snarkonice on tumblr.

It snowed last night. The golf course has been transformed into a luminous highland of soft ridges and shadowed slopes. The snow does strange things to the early morning light. Or perhaps the light does strange things to the snow. Either way, the whole thing is pink, crystalline. The black fingers of fir and spruce claw alarmingly alarmingly at the rosy haze. The world is silent, muffled, bleached and dead. This is how it seems. With the sunrise the park begins to stir. With a sharp _rap_ a woodpecker begins to drill. The flash of its crest is blood-bright against the black, grey, white world. As if waiting for their cue, three cardinals flit to a branch of honeysuckle, squabbling over the remaining berries. A dog barks in the distance.

These sounds are all louder than the footsteps of the two men who walk onto the ice of the 14th hole’s water hazard. The only sound is the clash of their weapons. Their conflict is precise, graceful. If it weren’t a fight to the death, one could call it polite. Many would call it beautiful. They move with a fluidity born of hours, weeks, centuries of practice. This is only one of a hundred battles they have fought, are fighting, will fight. These are only two of the hundreds of men, of people, fighting such battles. These battles will continue across the nation, the continent, the world. This story, this history, this battle will continue until the world’s end. Perhaps it will bring about this world’s end. But now, one man’s story, a story decades, centuries, maybe even millennia long will end with a single blow. One man will fall to his knees in defeat. Another will fall, his body wracked by the agony of his triumph.

There can be only one.

~~

Viktor Nikiforov is older than he looks. Most of the time he is older than he feels. On some days, like this one, he feels every second of his hundreds of years. How many is it? He has lost count. It doesn’t matter very much. He need only keep track of when it is time to move on, to find a new home, a new name. Most of the time he doesn’t much miss the old one. Who was he last? Ah, yes, Nikolaj Vittescu, a librarian from Romania. He isn’t even certain if that is a viable Romanian name. No one ever questioned it. In truth, it had been years since anyone had been close enough to him to be curious.

It is nice to be Russian again. This is closer to the truth than anything else. When he was a child Russia didn’t exist. When he was a child a lot of countries didn’t exist. After a thousand years, what does it matter? All that matters is survival. All that matters is continuing to win. Some days, like today, he can’t remember why.

Winter in Buffalo is miserable. Viktor sort of likes this. He prefers for the weather to complement his mood. He has a dull headache. It throbs between his eyebrows and tightens around the back of his skull, drawing his shoulders tense beneath his ears. The sky weighs on him, leaden, Baudelairian.

Viktor had met Baudelaire once. He had been a small sad wreck of a man, and Viktor had seen his death written clearly on his face. Viktor had seen death on many faces. The day before, at dawn, he had delivered death to a man on a frozen lake. He couldn’t say that he’d known the man. He couldn’t say that he had deserved death. He deserved death no more than Viktor did. But they had fought and Viktor had won.

Viktor lets the icy wind swirl around him on the street. He doesn’t wear a hat. It tosses his hair around his face. It freezes the tears in his lashes. It feels sharp and real, like a blade. Vodka also feels sharp and real. There is a bar just ahead, neon sign flickering sulky above the door. He hasn’t been in this one before. There are many places he hasn’t been. New places are always popping up like mushrooms after a rain. He doesn’t understand how people have the energy to keep doing new things. This place is familiar enough. Like mushrooms, a lot of the new things people do seem a lot like other things that people have done before.

He steps inside. The wind rushes around him for a moment, swirling a few flakes of snow around his feet. The bar is dim (aren’t they all?) and warm. Golden light reflects on the rows of bottles, making the cheap liquor look luxurious. A molded plastic dog, a terrier of some sort glows from within. Behind it is painting of a buck standing in a stream. It catching the light strangely, drawing Viktor close. As he approaches the bar, he realizes that the sign, too, is lit from behind. Some trick has animated the water. It rushes around the deer’s hooves with a soft sound that might be the sound of the brook or might simply be the motors that make the sign work. 

A door behind the bar opens with a clatter and a swear, fluorescent light spilling unceremoniously into the dim room, carrying with it a sharp tang of bleach that cuts through the old smoke of the bar. A young man with eyes as wide and brown as those on the stag in the Hamm’s sign stares at Viktor, startled into stillness. He feels like a predator. Perhaps he is. He forces his lips into a smile that he knows to be charming and slides onto a stool.

The young man swallows visibly, adam’s apple bobbing. He sets down the box he’s carrying and pushes up his glasses. He looks everywhere but at Viktor, eyes darting like he’s seeking an escape. Viktor props his elbows on the bar and laces his fingers together, resting his chin on the knuckles.

”So, come here often?” He flutters his eyelids, half expecting his company to bolt and run.

Somehow it has the opposite effect. The bartender coughs out a laugh, and shakes his head wryly. “Isn’t that my line?”

”No, you’re supposed to ask what I’m having. I believe that you and all of your regular patrons are also supposed to loudly and unanimously greet me by name.”

The bartender has been drying the same glass for much longer than necessary. The cloth squeaks against the rim. He looks baffled for a moment, then his face clears, brow lifting, “Oh. Got it. Sorry, I don’t watch much TV. Try it again, lets see if I get it right.”

Viktor is amused. It is no longer a familiar sensation. He can’t imagine his expression. He has grown accustomed to schooling his features, every interaction a performance of some sort. A genuine emotion startles him into inaction.

”Well, go on,” the bartender prompts, a reflection flashing on the lenses of his glasses. Viktor wonders if he is being mocked.

Nevertheless, he stands and takes a couple of long strides toward the door. He pauses for effect, then turns, squaring his shoulders and plastering a broad smile on his face. He walks toward his stool, each step confident, as if he has walked this floor a hundred times.

The bartender puts away his glass and picks up another, drying it with the same careful attention. He says nothing as Viktor approaches and sits. He is looking down at the glass in his hands, but Viktor can see the edges of his lips curl into a smile, quickly suppressed as he bites the inside of his cheeks.

”Well?”

”I don’t know your name. You don’t seem like a ‘Norm’.”

”Oh, what do I seem like?”

The man shrugs, and the faintest hint of a blush reddens his cheeks. His change of subject is deliberate and obvious. “So, what’ll you have?”

”Vodka. Neat.” A tumbler is set in front of him and a bottle crosses his line of sight. He nods, not looking at the label. His eyes are on the bartender’s hands. He pours a generous two-fingers, each movement somehow precise and graceful in a way that is evident even in such a simple task. His nails are trimmed short, but though his hands are clean, there’s something dark under the nails and ingrained in the cracks around his knuckles and at the tips of his fingers. He catches Viktor looking as he passes over the glass, and tucks his hands into his pockets. His jeans are worn and tight. There are several dark smudges where they strain over muscular thighs. Viktor sips his vodka. Cold and sharp, like him, like ice. “What’s your name?”

”Me?”

Viktor nods. “Who else?”

The bartender nods and wrinkles his nose. “Yuuri Katsuki. You?”

”Viktor Nikiforov.”

”I take it back. Norm really does suit you, I think.”

~~

Viktor stays away for a while. He has things to do. He needs to figure out who he is in this city, this life. He has inherited a bookstore. It is a nice bookstore. The metro-rail has a stop just a block away, and the apartment above it is warm and cozy, full of the sort of artifacts accumulated over a very long life. Viktor does not have these things. He prides himself on travelling light, floating gently on the waves of time. He has no desire to leave a mark or to settle down. He has tried it a few time over the years. They all have, of course.

Like most of his kind, the previous owner had tended toward eccentricity, and had lived a flashier lifestyle than was advisable. It had worked for him for many years, though, and perhaps he had become incautious. Or perhaps he had become tired. It was so hard to say. It had been half a century since Viktor had seen him, but for some indecipherable reason old Evgeni had chosen Viktor as his successor when he finally met his very timely demise. Or so Viktor had believed, until the smooth talking lawyer had placed a sabre on his desk and informed Viktor that he had taken Evgeni’s head. He adjusted the cuffs of his pinstripe suit as he explained how much he looked forward to claiming Viktor’s Quickening. He had nothing but the utmost respect for Viktor. Truly. It was nothing personal. He had been quite fond of Evgeni, as well. It was simply how things were, how they had to be. Surely one as old as Viktor understood. It was time for someone to take his head, time for his power to pass to someone younger, hungrier, more deserving. Someone ambitious. Someone like Cao Bin. Viktor stopped him before he could say much more. There was no doubt that Bin’s plans would sound grand and beneficial. They always did. Perhaps they would even have worked. It didn’t matter, though. At dawn they had fought and Viktor had won, and Cao Bin’s body was given to the flames in the woods between the 15th hole and the ocean.

Viktor has no plans for the world. He has no plans to be the one who is left. He also has no plans to lose the game. He has no plans for how he will resolve this conflict. He does, however, have plans for this apartment. Yes, Evgeni has left it warm and full of personality. The trouble is that it is full of Evgeni’s personality and not Viktor’s. Over his long life, people have accused him of being vain, of being finicky. Neither of these are entirely untrue. Viktor’s life is, of necessity, full of uncertainty. It is unplanned moves in the middle of the night. It is changing his name, his continent, his identity at the drop of a hat. It is a willingness to cast everything and everyone aside in favor of survival. It is the reality that when he bids a friend farewell, he may not meet them again for a hundred years, if at all. Viktor has few things he can plan, few things he can cling to, and he is unashamed of his attachment to those things.

The most important of those things is, of course, his weapons. There is a room that is less cluttered than the rest. Viktor has already begun to clear it. It has sturdy wood floors and large unfinished beams. It looks as if this was original storage for whatever commercial enterprise originally took place below. Evgeni had filled it with books and artifacts that should have been in the shop below. He was known for his sentimentality. Viktor is not known for any such foible, so he ruthlessly culls the collection of ancient paid bills and uses the mountain of correspondence as kindling. He wears a path in the sidewalk to the hardware store as he builds the things he needs: racks and shelves for storage, hooks and chains for hanging a heavy bag, and duct tape. So much duct tape. He paints the room a bright white, hangs paper shades over the large windows, and mounts mirrors along one wall. Many of Viktor’s kind are fabulously wealthy, having spent their centuries amassing fortunes and collections. Viktor is not one of them. Evgeni’s shop and residence are a wonder of comfort, filled with enough antiquities that Viktor should be able to live quite profitably from their sale, if he can find the right buyer.

Viktor decides to splurge a bit more. He takes himself to an upscale barbershop for a real haircut and shave, then to L. L. Berger, where he procures a suit, complete with tie, pocket square, and a glossy pair of oxfords. He buys two shirts, one in black with a stylish mandarin collar, and then permits the salesman to talk him a bright salmon colored button down in a buttery silk. He does _not_ permit the salesman to talk him into the ridiculous double breasted “power suit” of the era with its exaggerated shoulders. Viktor finds it ridiculous. He favors a slimmer silhouette. Fortunately, 50s nostalgia is in vogue, and although Viktor is baffled by the idea of nostalgia for a time so recent, he does find a jacket that fits him well. He sees a beautiful woolen overcoat on his way out, soft as a lamb, dark as night, and warm as a lover’s embrace. He touches the sleeves longingly, but leaves it behind. His coat is warm enough and he has already made the adjustments he needs to conceal his shashka. He has spent more money that he has in recent memory and decides that he has lived frivolously enough for the moment.

The streetcar would take him directly to the bookshop, but there is a presence following him. It has been with him all day, sometimes close enough to make the back of his skull itch, but on the inside, where he can’t scratch it, other times farther away, flickering on the edge of sensation. One of his kind is near, and he has no desire to lead anyone to his burrow until he knows them to be either friendly or dead.

The presence is drawing closer, and Viktor does not feel like a fight right now. He foolishly left his sword at home, and carries nothing but his _leuku_ in a sheath in one of his hidden coat pockets. He could take a head with it: he has done so before. He could win with it, even against an enemy with a sword: he has done so before. It is damned inconvenient, though, and difficult to do without attracting a great deal of attention.

There are no churches nearby, no holy ground. A sporadically flashing neon sign leads to a different sort of salvation. He steps through the door, blinking as his eyes adjust from the bright snow outside to the dim, smoky interior.

”Norm!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Poems about Death is our theme this time.
> 
> Who Wants to Live Forever?
> 
> from Who Wants to Live Forever, by Queen.


	2. Why, Tomorrow I may be Myself with Yesterday’s Sev’n Thousand Years

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Viktor might be in danger! Or he might have acquired a touch of paranoia over the last couple of centuries. You be the judge.
> 
> Viktor encounters an old friend, and Yuuri gets an unpleasant surprise.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains both swordplay and "swordplay." If you wish to avoid this, skip from “It’s something we would all do well to remember” to "He comes to himself." Unfortunately, you have to skip both in this chapter because, I dunno, style?
> 
> No one is having a particularly good time this chapter. Except maybe Christophe.

”Norm!” The greeting hangs in the air for a long frozen second as Viktor’s vision clears. The bar is as dim as before, but there’s a haze of cigarette smoke in the air, not just the lingering spoor of tobacco past. There is, not a crowd perhaps, but enough people that Viktor no longer wonders how the establishment remains open. Of course, it is Friday, that is the day that people celebrate the end of the week with libations and companionship. He hangs his purchases from the coat-rack and makes his way to a stool, his scuffed boots near soundless on the linoleum. Or perhaps the strains of Adam Ants “Goody Two Shoes” has drowned out the sounds of his footsteps. The crawling sensation at the back of his brain is even stronger in this room. Yuuri is again behind the bar, pulling bright gold beers from the taps, the light of the Spuds McKenzie him rendering the liquid rich and golden.

He passes the beers to a pair of men in shirtsleeves and suspenders, and turns his attention back to Viktor. “What’ll you have?” He wipes his clever hands and slings the towel over his shoulder then plants his hands wide on the bar. “Did I get it right this time?”

Victor nods and selects a rakish smile from his catalog of expressions. “Vodka, neat.” He adds a wink. Yuuri rolls his eyes. There is a silky glisten of eyeshadow as he turns away to select a bottle. He wears flashier clothes tonight: a white t-shirt that hugs the muscles of his chest and arms, tucked into pleated black slacks. His hair is slicked back from his face and an earring shaped like a star glints.

”So, Norm, eh? That’s a new one,” a deep voice purrs this in his ear, and the vibration in his brain reaches a fever pitch.

Viktor holds himself still. He knows that he won’t be unceremoniously beheaded in a grimy bar on a Friday night. No immortal would be so foolish. Still, though, he should not have let his attention wander, not when he knew there was danger nearby. He looks toward the voice, summoning every bit of his well-deserved arrogance.

His eyes wander dismissively up the figure next to him. A tall man in an impeccable power suit. Black, with a subtle charcoal pinstripe. After today, Viktor knows suits. This one is much more expensive than anything he can afford. Gold cufflinks glint next to large manicured hands. One of the hands raises something brown in an old-fashioned glass. The sneer falls from Viktor’s lips when he recognizes the pursed lips and quirked eyebrow. “Christophe!”

”Christophe? I thought you said your name was Jack.” Yuuri passes the drink to Viktor.

”Oh, yes, oh course.” Christophe grimaces at Viktor, who just smirks unsympathetically at his vexation. It is rare enough to see Christophe Giacommetti rattled. Viktor has no intention of relieving his discomfort. “Middle name, you see. Er, Norman, here, is quite an old family friend.” He sips from his glass, then smooths his full mustache, twisting the ends slightly. “Emphasis on _old_.”

Viktor glances at Yuuri, who is leaning attentively on the counter. “I see,” he says, “so how do you know _Norman_ , then?”

”Oh, we go back, positively centuries, don’t we my dear?”

”Okay, that’s it.” Viktor is out of his seat, “Pardon us, please.” He hoists Christophe bodily from his stool by the back of his suit. With Christophe’s height, he doesn’t have the leverage to do much more than threaten, but Christophe comes willingly, at least after he slides a business card and a wink at Yuuri.

Yuuri holds the card up to the light, making a great show of examining it before sliding it teasingly into the back pocket of his trousers. He returns to his bartending duties, but Viktor notices that his eyes keep creeping back to him. Does he imagine the slight furrow of concern between his eyebrows?

”Okay, why are you here?” Viktor has steered them to a table in the back corner of the bar.

” _Here_ , here, or in Buffalo, here?” Christophe asks.

Viktor takes a generous swallow of his drink and narrows his eyes at Christophe.

“Okay, okay. I got a letter from an old friend.” He reaches into the breast pocket of his jacket and passes a creased envelope across the table. Viktor takes it and scans the contents.

_Mon cher Christophe, I have left this letter in the care of my trusted solicitor Cao Bin of Leroy, Yang, & Associates. If this letter has been delivered, then I must regretfully inform you that my long life has come to its end at the hands of a worthy opponent. As my oldest and most trusted friend, I entrust to you my worldly possessions. Please, use them as you see fit. You may trust Cao Bin with your life, as I trust him with mine. He is one of us. He is in possession of the key to my apartment and will handle the necessary paperwork. I highly recommend the fine city of Buffalo, NY. _

Christophe slides it back to his side. “It goes on, of course, ‘Blah, blah: It is cold. I like the cold, because I am Russian or Finnish or some shit, et cetera, et cetera, I certainly did not kill him, please do come to my office.’ You can imagine my surprise to find you _shopping_ of all things.”

”I did not write this.”

”Of course not, you would never be guilty of such egregious word repetition. I’ll never hear the word ‘trust’ the same way again.” He shakes his head sadly. “I did think it warranted a bit of investigation, though. I was perfectly prepared to avenge your death.”

“And to claim a head while you were at it?”

“Of course. It would be almost as good as beating you myself.”

”Of course. I am so sorry to disappoint you. Cao Bin was a bit overconfident. He is dead.”

”I surmised as much. How did he lure you here?”

”The same way. I received a letter from an old friend. That one _is_ dead, though.” Viktor drains his glass and looks longingly at the bar, where Yuuri is pretending that he is not watching them.

”That one’s charming, isn’t he?” Christophe has followed his gaze. Yuuri is charming. Viktor is charmed. Viktor is also not an idiot.

”He is not one of us.”

”Of course not. Why does that matter?”

Viktor glares at Christophe who finally has the good grace to look away. “Because they die.”

”Oh, I’m not suggesting that you marry the boy. I’m only suggesting that you find out if his ass is as sweet as it looks.”

A dull ache alerts Viktor that he is clenching his jaw.

”I - “ Christophe pauses, examining his face. Something, old pain, perhaps, must show through the centuries of numbness. “I’m sorry, Viktor. I didn’t know.”

”I didn’t tell you. It’s been long enough. But once I learn a lesson, I remember it.”

”Heh. I’ll drink to that.” He holds up his empty glass, “If you’re buying, that is.”

 

 

Viktor carries their empties back to the bar. Yuuri is letting his hips sway slightly to the music on the jukebox.

”Another round?”

Viktor nods.

”Hey, is everything okay?” His warm brown eyes flicker to the table where Christophe sits watching them. There is a deep practiced worry there.

”Yes, old friends. You know how it is: lots of catching up to do.”

”If you say so.” He passes over the finished drinks. His fingernails are painted black this time, all but his left index finger, which is bandaged with stained athletic tape. “Take care.”

Viktor nods and returns to the table.

”The thing that has me concerned,” Christophe says as he accepts his drink, “is that this Cao Bin may not have been alone.”

”What makes you say that?”

”This isn’t the first time I’ve heard of this sort of thing. Immortals lured by a letter, then killed.” His voice is pitched low. Viktor can barely hear him over the music.

”So, someone is hunting. That’s what we do.”

”Someone is assembling an army to do their hunting for them. Haven’t you heard of JJ Le Roi?”

”Can’t say that I have.”

”Well, I haven’t had the pleasure, myself, but, unlike you, my dear, I keep in touch with my old friends. He’s young and he’s convinced that the Prize is his destiny.” Christophe shrugs and sips at his drink, his lips spread thin in a grimace. “Who knows? Maybe he’s right and he’ll be a just and beneficent ruler. He’s in an awful hurry about it, though.”

Viktor and Christophe have, as all immortals have, talked about the Game and the Prize and the Gathering to come. They know, as well as any, the one rule, the one central axiom of their kind: _There Can Be Only One._ It is a statement of such self-evident simplicity that many do not question it. Viktor and Christophe, though, share a similar distaste for authority, for assumption. They dislike easy truths and obvious answers. This is how - why - they have been friends for centuries. When someone tells them to do something, their immediate response is “Why?” Is it any surprise, then, that when someone says, “there can be only one,” they both say, “why?”

Viktor sips his vodka again, slower, thoughtful. “I’ll be careful.”

”You know you’re at the top of everyone’s list.”

”I know. I didn’t get there by accident.”

Christophe barks out a laugh. “You didn’t get there being humble, either, I see.”

 

 

Viktor shrugs into his coat at the door, Christophe close enough behind that he can feel the warmth of his breath when he speaks. “Alright then, darling. Your place or mine?”

Viktor pauses for a moment of thought, he debates the wisdom of letting anyone know where he lives. He thinks that he trusts Christophe, but does he really trust anyone anymore? Defiant, then, like he’s trying to prove something to himself, he says, “Mine. Hope you’re up for a bit of swordplay.”

”Oh dear, have you finally discovered the fine art of the pun?”

Viktor smirks at him. “No, I’ve a space set up for sparring. I think a reminder is in order.” He turns to wave farewell to Yuuri, but he is intent upon a conversation with a young brown skinned man with laughing eyes. He crushes the flare of unfounded jealousy. No. This is how it should be.

”A reminder of what?” Christophe teasing, his tone low, sulky with promise.

”Of your place.” Viktor swings the bag containing his new suit over his shoulder and steps through the door without a second glance. “It’s something we would all do well to remember.”

 

Christophe is sweating above him, the cords of his neck straining with his exertion. He is lovely like this, Viktor thinks, admiring the intensity of the focus that is centered on him. Every fiber of the other man’s being is straining toward him. Viktor is, for this instant, the center of the world. He loves it. Whatever else he feels, the boredom, the hopelessness, the numbness, he feels _alive_ in this moment. With a grunt, his opponent shifts his weight, just slightly, but enough for Viktor to take advantage.

\--

Viktor presses himself against Christophe in the shower. His belly, hot and slick with soap, slides against his skin. He wraps a hand around Christophe’s neck, forcing his mouth down to his own. The mustache is a ticklish novelty. They weren’t fashionable the last time they were together, and his friend is nothing if not attentive to the fickle fads of the short-lived. He turns his head, and Christophe follows gladly, sucking and biting at Viktor’s neck, marking him relentlessly at his most vulnerable point.

\--

His left arm snakes up beneath the sword that is pressed against his neck and his left hand grasps Christophe’s wrist. His vision is beginning to blur. “Yield, damn you,” Christophe pants. Viktor smiles widely, joyfully, and thrusts his hips upward while he twists the wrist in his grasp.

\--

Viktor advances on Christophe. Damp, nude, hard cock bouncing with every step. His head is ducked slightly, reflexively protecting the neck. Christophe gives way before him. Just before the back of his’s knees hit the edge of the bed, Viktor steps forward, coming in close to Christophe’s hip, sweeping his feet out from under him with his right leg. He goes down with a startled _wumpf._

\--

Overbalanced, Christophe rolls to the side and scrambles to his feet, losing his grip on the cavalry sabre. Viktor picks it up and advances on his friend, twirling the blade to test its weight. A wild, determined look crosses his face as he dives for Viktor’s shashka.

\--

He wears the same look later, when Viktor tells him to _wait, no, not yet, yes you can_. Christophe begs, he swears. Filth falls from his lips while Viktor uses his fingers to breach the body in front of him. He uses his mouth to bring Christophe to desperate tears before he finally uses his cock to claim him.

\--

Viktor dances across the mat, sword and body moving as one, parrying every blow, relentlessly pressing his advantage, never letting Christophe have a moment of rest, a moment to breath. Christophe has drawn his dirk and uses it in his left hand to block Viktor’s blows. There is a moment, Viktor sees the controlled panic clear on his face, as he forgets which sword he’s using, and tries to catch Viktor’s blow on the crossguard. The shashka doesn’t have crossguards. Christophe lets his defense waver for an instant and Viktor sweeps his stolen blade in to victory, kissing his opponent’s neck lightly with the blade’s edge. “I yield,” Christophe says on a sigh.

\--

Viktor thrusts sharp, burying himself to the hilt. He leans forward and presses Christophe’s body against his own, wanting to feel the heartbeat twinned in his own bosom. There is no way to be closer, but Viktor wants it anyway, craves it with every cell of his body. He curls over Christophe, who is gasping raggedly beneath him and presses his lips against his neck, exposed and beautiful. The body beneath him stiffens and Viktor can feel Christophe’s cock twitch where it is trapped between them, spurting hot and sticky against their bellies. He buries himself in Christophe over and over until he is spent, then collapses on boneless arms.

\--

He comes to himself who knows how much later, cheek pressed against Christophe’s chest, listening to his heart beating slow and steady in his chest. “Viktor?” The question rumbles to him, more felt than heard.

”Yes?”

”Are you well?”

”Of course.” He stands and walks to the bathroom.

”You seem,” Viktor can hear the tentative frown in his friend’s words, “harder.”

Viktor returns and tosses the damp rag to Christophe. “Oh, I thought that was desirable. Was it too much for you?” He smirks. “Because _that’s_ not something I thought I’d ever hear you say, _Jack_.” He lays back on the bed, forearm over his eyes.

Christophe snorts. “You know that’s not what I mean.” Viktor can practically hear his brow creasing. “I don’t know what I mean, but there’s something different, less _you_. You used to smile more. It worries me.”

”I smile all the time.” He raises himself to his elbows. “Look, I’m smiling now.” He twists his lips into the rictus smile of a corpse. It feels _right_.

Christophe takes a look at his face and gives an exaggerated shiver. “You’re mocking me, but right now, I could believe that you would kill me sooner than I’d believe that you could laugh.”

 

 

Chrisophe is gone in the morning, but Viktor finds one of his business cards. It lists him as owner of a gallery in Toronto. Viktor is surprised at how comforting it is to know that a friend is close. He plans to spend the day in the bookstore, sign flipped to “OPEN,” but he doesn’t expect customers. He has seen no hint of any sort of regular patronage, and none of his brief forays into Evgeni’s tormented financial records indicate that the shop was anything more than a cover. Despite this, somehow, the place feels cherished. The office is well used, full to the brim with papers and records. A row of notebooks lines one wall, each neatly labelled with a date range. They begin in 1908. Viktor tries to read one of the recent ones but his attention jitters from page to page.

His initial suspicions appear to be correct. The door doesn’t open once. Neither does the telephone ring. Viktor checks for a dial tone. It hums in his ear, and Viktor listens for longer than he should. There’s no real reason for him to stay downstairs waiting for customers that will not come, but that is what he has decided to do today, so that is what he will do. Perhaps his next project will be to install a doorbell, then he won’t feel the need to keep watch. He makes a desultory effort at productivity. He finds a phonebook in one of the desk drawers. It is years out of date, and Viktor was again correct. The law firm of Leroy, Yang, & Associates is not listed. He rummages some more, unceremoniously upending an entire file cabinet onto the desk. He calls information and is connected to a receptionist at the law firm. He asks to speak to LeRoy, but is unceremoniously disconnected when he tells her that, no, he does not have an appointment. He is not given the opportunity to request one.

He eats a boiled egg and a cup of condensed tomato soup for lunch.

The suns sets early this time of year. Today was sunny, though. Bright and cold. Now the light is shafting golden through the windows, illuminating the floating cloud of dust. Viktor finds a deck of erotic playing cards at the back of a desk drawer along with a stash of black and white photographs of blonde women in various states of undress. He lays out the cards, stirring the dust every time he snaps one against the desktop. When he next wins a hand, he decides, slouching lower in the desk chair, then he will lock the door.

He flips a card, hoping for the three of hearts, when the sharp creak of the door startles him upright. He reaches for his sword and steps swiftly, silently toward the door of the office. Pulse fluttering in his ears, he stands and listens.

”Zhenya?” A friend, then. The voice is soft, tentative, and somehow familiar. “I was worried when you were closed for so long.” There’s a rustle, a coat behind hung on the hook by the door. Then his visitor steps into the doorway of the office. Yuuri, his charming bartender, freezes, brown eyes wide as he takes in the sight. The office, ravaged, drawers dumped onto the floor, the desk, papers crumpled and tossed, and at the center of it stands Viktor, sword in hand in an attitude of perfect combat readiness. He knows that he must be wide-eyed and disheveled.

The only motion is the silent working of Yuuri’s jaw as he stares, eyes locked with Viktor’s. Words finally come. “What. The. Fuck.” Then he bolts.

Viktor is right behind him, “Wait, I know it looks - “

“I have to - I need to go.” His voice is high, frantic.

“Please, I can explain.”

Yuuri is wrestling with his coat, one sleeve inside out. Viktor lunges forward, gets between him and the door, blocking his exit with a hand slapped against the doorframe hard enough to sting. “Please - just let me leave, I won’t tell anyone anything. Please just don’t -” Yuuri is pleading with him, babbling. Tears collect in his lower lashes, threatening to spill onto his cheeks.

“I’m not going to hurt you!” Viktor shouts.

Improbably, that shocks Yuuri into a disbelieving laugh.

Viktor takes a moment to reflect on the scene. “Oh, right. Sorry.” He sets the sword aside. “Please,” he gestures to the chair in the office.

Yuuri’s eyes flit across Viktor’s face, then back to the sword. He gives a short determined nod and removes his tangled jacket. The floor is littered with paper from Viktor’s chaotic attempts at organization. Yuuri steps delicately over them and takes a seat. He folds his arms defensively and glares at Viktor, raising an eyebrow.

”So, you know Evgeni? Zhenya, I mean?” Viktor asks, forcing a smile, schooling his voice into the gentle tones he would use with a skittish horse.

”Yeah,” he still looks frightened. “I was worried when he was closed for so long. I had some books for him. I do repairs.” The resolution is visible in his face when he drags his eyes to Viktors. “Is he okay?”

”He’s dead.”

”Wow. You just… Wow.” His arms are held even tighter across his chest, and Viktor can see the whiteness of his knuckles where he clutches at his bicep. The tears finally spill over, leaving bright tracks over his cheekbones. “Did you kill him?”

”No.” Yuuri doesn’t believe him, Viktor can tell. “I swear it.”

”I can’t believe - Why would you just _say_ it like that?”

”Everyone dies.” Everyone else, is what he means.

Yuuri gapes at him. Viktor shrugs. He folds his arms across his chest and looks away because now Yuuri is sniffling, trying to hide it, trying to dash the tears away and hold his voice steady, and it takes everything in Viktor to stay still. He doesn’t know what he wants to do. He wants to run away, he wants Yuuri gone, to be alone again, he wants to gather Yuuri into his arms and kiss his eyelids and the furrow between his eyebrows until his face is smooth and peaceful again. He can’t do all of these things at the same time, so he forces himself to do nothing. “I’m sorry.” He forces the words through teeth that are clenched in disgust or maybe sympathy.

Yuuri calms himself after a moment and asks, with barely a quaver. “How?” There’s a watery smile as he explains. “It’s dumb, but he seemed like he would be here forever.”

Viktor’s heart stutters. Could he know? “What makes you say that?”

Yuuri frowns, “I’m employing dramatic hyperbole. Obviously I don’t mean that literally.” He goes on, “It’s just, _here_ , this shop, I mean. It’s been here forever, and Zhenya’s family has always owned it. My mom says he looks looked _just_ like his dad.”

”I can imagine,” Viktor’s reply is as dry as the Gobi. “So, you’ve been coming here a long time, then?”

Yuuri nods, with a sniffle. “Since I was a kid. It’s how I got into books.” He is flipping over the cards, smiling gently at the pinups on the back. “Dirty old man,” he mutters.

Viktor has been leaning against the frame of the door. He straightens now. “Come upstairs,” he says. “We can talk.” Yuuri startles when he bends over the desk but Viktor just lifts his scabbard, with a grimace that he intends to be apologetic. He retrieves his sword and sheaths it before locking the door and flipping the sign. Yuuri trails behind him, eyes on the weapon. Sensible, Viktor thinks as he leads Yuuri to the back stairway.

 

 

”Damn,” Yuuri says, looking around intently. Viktor looks up curiously. He has been rummaging through Evgeni’s stuffed cabinets. He knows there will be alcohol somewhere. “Some of this stuff is really old,” Yuuri elaborates, running one of his graceful fingers along the frame of an icon of St. Jerome. _Really old_ is a hideous understatement.

Viktor is still older.

 _A-ha_. He pours the vodka into two mugs. One of them sports an orange cartoon cat on the side. He comes to stand beside Yuuri, offering him the one that advertises the local public radio station. “To Zhenya,” Viktor proposes, touching his glass to Yuuri’s.

”To Zhenya,” Yuuri seconds with a murmur. He takes a seat on the edge of the couch. “So, what happened?”

 _Lie,_ Viktor tells himself. Car accident, undiagnosed heart defect, fall from a great height, anything but the truth. “He was killed. With a sword.”

Yuuri’s voice is very small. “Oh.” He takes a moment and Viktor watches the flexing of the tendons in his neck as he takes a healthy swallow from his mug, grimacing as he does so. “I don’t want to make you mad, because you have a sword and at first I thought you were kind of hot, but now it turns out that you’re actually terrifying, but…”

”Did I kill him?”

Yuuri doesn’t look at him when he nods. Viktor follows the gaze to the sword on the kitchen counter.

”No. He was a friend.”

”An old friend?”

Viktor nods.

”Then who did?”

”A man named Cao Bin. He cut off his head.”

Yuuri breathes in sharply through his nose and tilts his head back. “I _really_ did not need to know that.”

”I’m sorry.” Viktor is surprised to realize that he means it.

”Where is, um, Cao Bin?”

”Dead. Someone cut off his head.”

”Were you the someone? Or was it your friend Jack?”

”Who?”

Yuuri actually rolls his eyes. “I knew that wasn’t his real name.”

”Oh. Christophe.”

”If you say so. You killed him, didn’t you? Cao Bin, I mean. Not Christophe.”

”Yes.” Viktor isn’t sure why it comes out as a whisper.

Yuuri sets his mug on the coffee table then examines his hands. He stretches out the fingers and holds them before him. Viktor has the strange feeling that he’s checking to see if they shake. They do not. Yuuri seems surprised, maybe even troubled by this. There is a definite smear of something black across the knuckles of his left hand, and the pad of his right thumb is gold. “Is that something you do often?”

Viktor keeps losing the thread of the conversation. Yuuri is getting impatient with him, he can feel it. “I try not to.”

Yuuri’s eyebrows shoot up to his hairline. His eyes, already wide and damp grow even huger. He’s like a startled doe or something just as beautiful. This is an inappropriate turn of thought, given the circumstances. “Are you _kidding_?” His voice rises on the word, and this time there is a sharp note of panic. “You _try_ not to cut people’s heads off?” He gasps a breath, “Like, like, you _try_ not to eat meat, but sometimes you slip up and have a hamburger. Like, like that kind of _try_ not to do something? Or, or, is it like you try to stop drinking, but you just can’t help it, or, or -”

Viktor knows it won’t help, but he doesn’t know how to help. Nothing he can do will help, not when Yuuri is sitting on his couch, Evgeni’s couch, and Viktor can see the panic rising in the other man’s chest, clawing at his throat from the inside, crushing his lungs. All he can see are Yuuri’s eyes, glassy and wild, staring at him and asking him to do _something_. Viktor comes to the couch and takes a seat. Very careful not to touch any part of Yuuri, he holds his right hand up, in Yuuri’s line of sight. “I never want to kill anyone. I try not to. Sometimes I have to. I don’t want to kill, but I don’t want to die.”

”Everyone dies,” Yuuri echoes, but he grabs Viktor’s hand in a grip tight enough to be painful.

”I know. Here, breathe with me,” Yuuri braves a look at him, and Viktor nods encouragement as he takes a long slow breath. He holds it for a count of four, then lets it go. Yuuri is staring at him like he’s an absolute madman. “Breath from there,” he points to Yuuri’s belly. “Not there,” he points at Yuuri’s hunched shoulders. He takes another breath. This time Yuuri follows. It’s shaky, but slowly, slowly, the grip on his hand loosens.

They sit like that for a long time. Immortality has not taught Viktor patience, but for this long, static moment he doesn’t have to fight the urge to move. He just sits and breathes. So does Yuuri.

Then, suddenly, it ends. There’s a hiss from the radiator, a creak from the floor, a siren in the distance and the fragile bubble of the moment is shattered. Yuuri’s hand flexes around his. Quickly, Yuuri lets go and scrubs his palm against his thigh. “Um, thanks,” he says.

Viktor can’t summon his voice to do anything, so he just watches Yuuri.

Yuuri, in turn, watches Viktor. There’s something a little softer in his eyes; worry rather than panic. “Are _you_ okay?”

”Yes, sure, of course.” Everyone seems to be asking him that lately. Of course he is okay. He is fine, nothing is wrong. He will continue as he has been for as long as necessary. Nothing needs to change other than his name and his city every twenty years or so. He smiles, but it won’t stay in place.

”I...I should go. I have to work,” he stands rapidly and takes a couple of quick steps toward the stairs before stopping suddenly and spinning to face Viktor. “Don’t worry - and don’t, like, kill me tonight. I won’t tell anyone about - about how you sometimes, you know, um, cutoffpeople’sheadswithswords.”

”I appreciate your consideration.” He stands to follow Yuuri down the stairs.

”You don’t have to...I can let myself out.”

“I need to lock up after you.” _Oh_. Right. Never turn your back on a threat. “I can go down first, so you can see me.”

Relief, then embarrassment cross Yuuri’s face. “Thanks.” The shop is dark now, other than a few streaks of light from the streetlights. He pauses near the office door and gathers the few scattered books, offering them to Viktor. “Um, these were, uh, for Zhenya. I don’t know if -” there’s that look of determination again. It’s almost a challenge that Viktor doesn’t understand. “Do you want them?”

The books look new, leather glowing buttery on the covers, Titles embossed in gold on the spine. He takes them and flips through the one on top. It’s a collection of poems by Pushkin. The endpaper is decorated with a geometric pattern of birds in flight, and it bears a bookplate marking it as part of Evgeni’s collection. “This is -”

”That one was a gift.”

”Is this your work?” Viktor indicates the bookplate. It is finely detailed, a tiny landscape of a mountain scene that seems to glow from within. He runs his fingers over it gently, reverently, surprised to find that the image rises and falls beneath his fingers, embossed into the soft whiteness of the paper. “It’s beautiful.”

”Thank you. There’s an invoice in - here.” Yuuri slides it from between the pages. “Cash only.”

Viktor returns to the desk. Somewhere in the mess he made is a lockbox.

As he counts out the sum, Yuuri asks, “Are you actually going to keep this place open? Do you know anything about books?”

”Absolutely nothing.” He places the bills neatly into an envelope. “But I plan to give it a try, for a while, at least.” The envelope exchanges hands and disappears into a pocket of Yuuri’s jacket.

”Well, if you need,” Yuuri begins, then stops himself and shakes his head, “I mean, if something needs rehabbing, you can call me. The number’s on the invoice.”

”Good, that’s - good. Thank you.” He looks at the books in his hands, and looks at Yuuri, zipping up his leather jacket and twining a plaid scarf around his neck. His cheeks are sore, but the muscles around his eyes feel strangely light.

Yuuri checks his pockets and then looks back up at Viktor. For a second his face changes, too. Viktor wants to chase the small secret smile that flits across Yuuri’s lips, but it slips away when his brown eyes look past Viktor at the cluttered shelves behind him. Serious, intent, he looks back at Viktor. “This is the craziest thing I’ve ever said, and I can be a little,” he flutters a hand eloquently next to his temple, “But you should come by the bar again sometime.”

”I will.” He holds out his hand, and after a long second, Yuuri takes it. They shake firmly.

Viktor stands in the cold doorway for a long time before he locks up and goes upstairs.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Poems about death is our theme this time.
> 
> Ah, my Belov'ed fill the Cup that clears  
> To-day Past Regrets and Future Fears:  
> To-morrow! — Why, To-morrow I may be  
> Myself with Yesterday's Sev'n Thousand Years.
> 
> From Quatrain 21 of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam (Fitzgerald translation)


	3. Thou Art Slave to Fate

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We're taking a brief jaunt into Yuuri's POV to see how he's handling all of this. I'm sure he's just fine.
> 
> Yuuri makes some nice new friends and has a chat with Phichit.

The fluorescent light of the employee bathroom is unforgiving as ever. Yuuri dabs at his eyes with a paper towel even though he knows that he is doomed to a night of being asked if he’s okay. He looks in the mirror. Puffy eyes? Check. Red nose? Check. Slight raccooning from eyeliner he couldn’t completely remove? Check. He sighs. At least it will be a busy night. No one looks at the bartender too closely on a Saturday night.

”Are you okay?”

Yuuri winces. Phichit would choose tonight to come in. “Yeah, I’m fine. Allergies.”

The response earns him a skeptical look, but no further commentary. Phichit has been a good friend for a long time and Yuuri knows that he can’t successfully hide anything from him. At least he seems to have decided to drop the subject until Yuuri isn’t at work. Thank god for small favors.

”So, what can I get you?” Yuuri is scanning the crowd, barely listening.

”Hm. How about a Screaming Orgasm?” His voice is louder than necessary.

This is one of Phichit’s favorite games. Yuuri is not in the mood. “I don’t have the ingredients.”

”Sure you do! It’s just -”

Yuuri slams a lowball glass on the bar in front of him, slops some whiskey into it and tops it off with ice and ginger ale. “It’s on the house.” He stalks pointedly to the other end of the bar where a couple that looks much too classy to be here is waving him over.

”Help you?” He asks. It’s one thing to be brusque with his friends, but he needs to get his act together for the regular customers. 

”Oh,” the woman giggles. She has a faintly Mediterranean look about her, but with the sort of so-blue-they’re-almost-purple eyes that Liz Taylor has. She doesn’t do it for him, obviously, but even he can admit that she’s striking. “I know it’s a summer drink, but it’s been _years_ since I’ve had a good gin and tonic.” Yuuri nods.

 _Hate to break it to you, lady, but you’re not getting a good gin and tonic tonight either._ He still manages to serve up a flirty smile with the drink before turning to the man. Her escort - that’s really the only word that seems appropriate - is practically quivering with anger. “Coffee. Black.”

This doesn’t seem like a customer who needs more caffeine, but Yuuri does _not_ get paid enough to argue to with rough trade, so he pours a cup and takes the guy’s money.

When he returns with the change, the woman sips her cocktail and smiles like it really is the best thing she’s had in ages. “Ah! It reminds me of India. Remember, Mickie? That charming little village in Goa?”

”I remember.” Mickie is still glaring at Yuuri.

”Be nice, Mickie,” she scolds him softly, seriously, without any of the flirtation that has been sweetening her voice. “What is your name?” She turns back to Yuuri.

”Yuuri.”

”It’s a pleasure to meet you, dear. My name is Sara. This is my brother Mickie.” Yuuri hates being called _dear_ especially by a woman who appears to be at least five years younger than he is. That said, money is practically oozing out of this pair, and Yuuri can’t afford to lose this job. Whatever. He can nod and smile. Sara practically glows with pleasure, even though Yuuri knows that his customer service smile is completely transparent. “We’re new to the area.”

”You don’t say.”

She breezes on as if he hasn’t said anything. “We were hoping to reconnect with some _old friends_.” Yuuri’s heart speeds up. Why do people keep using that phrase? “We wondered if they might come in here from time to time.”

Mickie leans on the bar and Yuuri takes an involuntary step back. “Chinese guy. A little older than you. Name of Cao Bin.”

Yuuri swallows. He picks up a glass and starts drying it. He hopes these two can’t tell that it was from the clean stack. “Ha,” maybe his fear will magically turn into convincing sarcasm. “Hate to break it to you, but I stopped subscribing to the newsletter.”

Mickie’s eyes narrow. “What newsletter?”

”Oh, the one that Asians get. The one that makes sure that we all know each other.”

”I should k- “

Sara lays her hand on Mickie’s. Yuuri supposes that some siblings are closer than others. “There’s another man. You’d know him if you saw him. Tall, slender. Silver hair, but young. Have you seen anyone like that around here?”

”Nope!” Yuuri almost chokes out the word. “Definitely not!”

”Is that so?” The threat in Mickie’s voice has gone from _implied_ to evident, accompanied by bright flashing lights and sirens.

”Hey! Who’s a guy gotta do to get some service around here!” Yuuri swears that he will learn how to make every single one of Phichit’s idiotic cocktails in gratitude for this moment.

”Excuse me. Duty calls.”

”Oh, of course. What a shame.” Sara sips her drink. “Well, if you should hear from either one of them?” She hands him a business card, drains her glass and sweeps out of the bar, arm through Mickie’s. They don’t tip.

 

 

Yuuri’s hands are shaking when he gets back to Phichit.

”Rough night?”

Yuuri nods and with a quick glance around, pours himself a shot from the first bottle he grabs and downs it in one. “Gah!”

Phichit smirks as Yuuri glares at the bottle of sour mix before putting it away. This time he goes straight to the top shelf and pours himself a shot of decent bourbon. This is a cheap bar. Maker’s Mark is as swanky as they get. He doesn’t usually drink on the job, but after the night he’s had, Yuuri figures he deserves it. Phichit waves his empty glass at Yuuri, who fills it to the brim. Phichit’s smirk turns to concern as he watches. “Wow. What is up with you tonight?”

”I’ve got a break as soon as Leo gets here. I need to talk to you.” Yuuri can’t stop himself from watching the door, jumping every time it opens.

The next fifteen minutes crawls, but nothing else exciting happens. Yuuri pours the usual drinks, has the usual arguments, tries his best to act like everything is fine and normal, like he didn’t just find out that an old family friend just got his fucking head chopped off with a fucking sword. Like the guy who did the chopping didn’t also get _his_ fucking head chopped off with a fucking sword. Like the sexy foreigner that he’s been flirting with doesn’t apparently chop off heads (with a Fucking Sword!) often enough that he has to somehow “try not to.” Thank god Leo is some sort of alien who actually _likes_ to work and arrives early. Yuuri grabs Phichit by the elbow, tops off their drinks and drags him to a table in the corner.

”Okay. _What_ is up with you tonight?”

Yuuri scans the room, looking for anyone out of place. Nothing but regulars. He turns back to Phichit. “You know Evgeni? Russian guy, sells books?”

”That dusty shop on Main that you like to drag me to?”

“Yeah.” Yuuri looks around again and leans closer. “He’s dead.”

Phichit gasps, “Oh, Yuuri. I’m so sorry.” He frowns, “Is there anything I can do? Do you want me to come to the service with you?”

“I don’t think there’s gonna be a service.” Not open casket, anyway. Well, maybe with a turtleneck… A hysterical laugh tries to bubble up in his throat, but he tamps it down with another swig of whiskey. “That’s not - Phichit, somebody killed him.”

“What?!” Phichit’s shriek makes the couple at the next table look up. Yuuri waves him quiet. “Yuuri, how do you know? There wasn’t anything on the news.”

“I don’t think anyone knows.”

“Do you know something? You have to go to the police! Oh my god. Did you find the body?!”

“No, nothing like that. I went to his shop and V- someone else was there. They told me what happened.”

”And you just believed them? How do you know that wasn’t the killer?”

”I - I don’t know.” Yuuri couldn’t answer that question to himself. Maybe he was being an idiot. “I just...did.”

Phichit give him a look that sums up exactly how stupid and credulous he thinks Yuuri is being. “Does this have anything to do with your new friend?”

Yuuri can feel the blood drain from his face. He told Viktor he wouldn’t say anything, and while he thinks that he genuinely doesn’t believe that Viktor would actually murder him, he doesn’t really want to test that theory. Also, for some deeply bizarre and probably stupid reason, he doesn’t want to betray Viktor.

”Because those two were _definitely_ up to something. Who drinks a gin and tonic during December?”

The breath leaves Yuuri’s lungs so quickly that it makes him lightheaded. “Yeah. I think they’re a part of it. Whatever it is.”

”Are you scared?”

“Phichit, I’m scared of escalators. Of _course_ I’m scared.”

”What do you think it is? Spies? Organized crime? Aliens?”

Yuuri loves his friend, he really does, but Phichit’s enthusiasm for drama can be exhausting, especially when the drama happens to be Yuuri’s actual real life. One of Yuuri’s actual real friends is dead because of whatever is going on. It’s suddenly all too much. His eyes start to burn and he has to bite the inside of his cheek to keep his jaw from wobbling.

”Oh shit. I’m sorry, Yuuri. I didn’t mean to -” Phichit is desperately looking through his pockets for something. “Here.” He hands Yuuri a bandana. It smells faintly of cigarettes, but Yuuri uses it to wipe his eyes anyway.

”Thanks.” He glances up at the clock. “Crap. I’ve gotta -” 

“No problem.” Phichit stands and pats his shoulder. “Hey. You gonna be okay?” 

“Yeah. Yeah. You probably have to go, right?” 

“I don’t have to.” He glances at his watch with a grimace. 

“Nah, I’m fine. Someone has to make the donuts, right?” 

“Are you sure?” Phichit squares his shoulders. “Because I am ready to walk you home and defend you against gangsters, desperados, and hooligans.” 

“Thanks, but I’m really okay.” 

“Okay, well, do me a favor and call me when you get home. I don’t care if you wake me up.” 

“I can do that.” 

 

 

When Yuuri gets back to the bar, Leo is in the midst of a heated argument with a skinny blonde kid. It doesn’t take much imagination to figure out the source of the disagreement. Leo, as relaxed as ever, is just wordlessly pointing at the sign, while the kid continues to insist that he is old enough to buy a drink. 

“Okay. Let’s see the ID, then.” 

“I already told this idiot that I don’t have ID.” 

“Well, then, you also won’t have a drink.” It feels good to be back in his normal life. This argument, kids trying to buy booze, is one he has at least once a week. “I think you should give it up.” 

The kid narrows his eyes at Yuuri with something like recognition and he feels a surprising thrill of fear. He’s probably just still keyed up from all of the everything that happened today. He doesn’t let himself drop his gaze, and the kid eventually slumps. “Fine. I wouldn’t drink in a shithole like this anyway.” He pushes his way past the other customers, muttering the whole time. Yuuri could have sworn he heard him say something like, “old enough to be your fucking grandfather, asshole. Fucking great-great grandfather.” 

Leo looks over at him with a shrug. “That’s a new one.” 

“Yeah. Sorry about leaving you in the lurch, there.” 

“No problem. It wasn’t anything I couldn’t handle.” 

The rest of the night passes in a blur of customers and conversations, and the strange events of the afternoon feel more like a dream than any part of his real life. 

At least until the bar closed. He and Leo lock up and part ways on the street. Yuuri stares down the block. Is that clanging noise the lid of a trash can, or something else? What is that flash over there? Are those footsteps following, or just the echo of his own? He tucks his chin into his scarf and shoves his hands into his pockets. If he doesn’t get killed on the way home, maybe he'll just have a heart attack from the fear. 

It is the longest walk of his life, but he still makes it back to his apartment. The sense of someone following him hasn’t let up. Not when he takes a seat in an empty train car, not when he climbs up out of the station near his apartment. Not even when he locks the front door of his apartment building behind himself or in the stairwell with its persistent stench of cat pee and flickering light bulbs. It is only when he is safely home, every lock fastened, every light on, and a Diff’rent Strokes re-run on the TV, that he feels anything resembling normalcy. 

“Hey Babe. You okay?” Phichit’s voice sounds warm and sleepy. 

“Yeah. I made it home.” 

“Any more excitement?” 

“Nah. I had to disappoint a child, but otherwise it was a painfully normal night.” He doesn’t see any reason to mention his terrifying commute. Instead he stretches the telephone cord to maximum capacity while he fills a pot with water and tries to decide between pork and shrimp flavored ramen.

“Good. In that case, I’m gonna -” he trails off into a yawn. 

“Yeah. Good night.” 

“Be careful, Yuuri.” 

~~

After Yuuri leaves, Viktor spends several more hours working in the shop. He straightens the office, and while it is a far cry from organized - Viktor suspects that he could spend several lifetimes at it and be no closer to deciphering Evgeni’s idiosyncratic filing system - it no longer appears to have been recently ransacked. He has somehow forgotten the simple satisfaction of completing a task, however imperfectly.

He rewards himself by plucking a book from the nearest shelf and walking until he finds an all-night diner. It has gotten later than he realizes by the time he finishes his salisbury steak. The bars are beginning to close and the diner to fill with drunks ordering pancakes and coffee. Viktor waves his waitress over and pays twice what the meal was worth before stepping back into the cleansing cold.

It is rare for Viktor to be out and about so late. He wonders what it would feel like to stay up just a few more hours, to greet the sunrise from the wrong side of wakefulness. A yawn stretches his lips. Maybe another night.

He feels it as soon as he unlocks the door: the humming buzz that raises the hairs at the back of his scalp. Someone is in the building. Another immortal. Viktor’s sword is upstairs in his apartment. It is an unforgivable lapse, but Viktor has survived worse mistakes. As long as he can get to the studio on the second floor first, he will be fine. He will win.

He climbs the staircase, freezing at the creak of the third step. Of course, his visitor will have heard the door open, but he doesn’t want to be so easily tracked. He slips off his shoes and tosses them to the foot of the stairs, letting them clatter. Under the cover of the noise, he runs swiftly, surely up the stairs and silently opens the door to the studio.

His opponent smiles at him, wide as a skull, and draws his sword.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gasp! Who could it possibly be? Is Viktor in danger?
> 
> Poems about death is our theme this time.
> 
> Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,  
> And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell,  
> And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well  
> And better than thy stroke; why swell'st thou then? 
> 
> from Holy Sonnet 10 by John Donne


	4. If ye break faith with us who die

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nothing to see here, just some Russians with swords.
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> Yuri grabs the mug and thrusts it at VIktor to fill. “I like this cat,” he comments, “Have you seen him?”
> 
> ”Is that Heathcliff?” Viktor peers at the mug as he fills his own glass.
> 
> Yuri’s jaw drops, scandalized. “No! He is Garfield. Heathcliff is a collaborator and an informant. He is no friend of the worker. Garfield just wants to be left alone and to eat lasagna.”
> 
> ”That is a sound philosophy.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> there's a sword fight and Viktor continues to be in a rough spot, emotion-wise. There's also drinking that could be considered underage from a certain point of view.
> 
> I am unhealthily dependent on comments for my emotional wellbeing.

"What are you doing here, Yuri Nikolaevich Plisetsky?”

His opponent sneers. The years haven’t changed him. Of course they haven’t. He is still small; he had been short and thin for his age when Viktor had first met him shortly after one of Russia’s wars. He thinks this one had been against the Turks, but he has trouble keeping them all straight. He had claimed to be eighteen then, but Viktor has his doubts. The intervening years have honed him sharp as the blade that glints cheerfully in the light that falls from the stairwell behind Viktor. Yuri says nothing and his left hand is hidden. His scowl deepens.

”Ah, judging from that look, you expect me to know. My dear Yura -”

”Tch.”

The boy has an obnoxious sort of appeal, an insurmountable arrogance that Viktor finds strangely charming. Viktor goes on, a smile twitching at his lips. “You knew I was the forgetful type.” His voice is light, which he knows will enrage Yuri. “For instance, I seem to have forgotten more than a kitten like you could ever hope to learn.” He lets disdain saturate the words. Yuri is still all wounded pride and eagerness to prove himself. Viktor doesn’t particularly want to kill Nikolaevich if he can avoid it. He would consider it a favor to the boy’s grandfather. They had been friends once upon a time, compatriots, young men in their prime. Nikolai has been dust for nearly a hundred years, but Viktor and Yuri remain.

”You said -” the boy spits, his face twisted with anger. “When I asked you to teach me, you said, ‘See me in one hundred years, brat,’” Viktor winces as the memory returns. “‘See me if you’re still alive in one hundred years, Then, maybe, you’ll be worth my time.’” Yuri tilts his blade, watching the light gleam on its sharpened edge with a satisfied smile. “As you can see, I’m still here. I came to find you to make you keep your promise.” He frowns, “but now that i’m here, I wonder whether you will be worth _my_ time.”

Yuri moves his left hand. He holds a shashka, Viktor’s own. He hefts it confidently, testing the balance, his own sabre still gleaming in his right. He slides his left foot back, dropping into a fighting stance, one sword raised defensively, the other low by his thigh, ready to swing. They hold each other’s gaze for a long moment, then Viktor is moving, even as Yuri rushes to attack. His speed is impressive, but Viktor has long years of experience at his disposal. Yuri telegraphs his attacks, relying on skill to carry him through. It is the first thing Viktor will train out of him, assuming they both survive.

Viktor feints one way, the obvious, sensible way, toward his racks of edged weapons, and Yuri is eager to follow. As soon as Viktor sees his weight shift, he changes direction with a long leap and a roll that carries him instead to the wooden practice weapons. He has bokken and some slatted _shinai_. He ignores these and grabs a bō: what he lacks in edge, he can make up for in reach.

Yuri spins to face him and snarls, “Are you fucking kidding me?” He launches himself at Viktor again, blades slashing furiously. “Do you think you can beat me with your little _stick_? I will kill you with your own sword!”

”Maybe one day.” Viktor sidesteps a blow that comes close enough for him to feel its cold whisper along his cheek. He spins and parries, knocking his sword from Yuri’s left hand, “but not today.”

To his credit, Yuri recovers immediately. “Do you know how many heads I’ve taken since we met?”

”No,” Viktor replies, his tone one of polite curiosity. He is careful to keep any hint of exertion well hidden. It wouldn’t do for Yuri to notice that he is getting winded. “Do you keep count?” He grins as Yuri screams and rains a flurry of blows at Viktor. He has enough strength behind a sharp blade that Viktor is glad he grabbed his heavy staff - a gift from a friend made of a wood she called bodark: heavy, dense, and hard - rather than one of the rattan practice sticks. Viktor blocks another blow, this one a wild overhead swing, and the edge of the sword catches in the wood and binds up right away.

Before Yuri can pull his blade free, Viktor steps close beside Yuri and hooks his legs from under him. He lets his momentum carry them both to the mat, a knee on either side of Yuri’s ribs and his weight on the staff over Yuri’s throat. The boy struggles, still trying to free his sword, but it’s no use, the angle allows him no leverage. He struggles a moment longer, arching his back, trying to dislodge Viktor, clawing at his arms, but he is unmoved. Yuri gasps for air and Viktor can feel the grip on his bicep weakening.

Enough.

He rolls to the side, rising smoothly to his feet and reclaiming his shashka. He pretends to check the edge while Yuri collects himself. He has rolled to the side, curled up like a shrimp, gasping and coughing. VIktor’s own lungs burn in sympathy, or perhaps he has neglected his endurance training.

After a moment, he extends a hand to Yuri, even if he keeps his sword ready at his hip. Yuri glares like he wants to slap it away, but he accepts and rises with brittle grace.

”Come upstairs. I give you a drink.”

”Tch. Like I didn’t already help myself.”

”Eh, I’ll give you another. It won’t kill you.”

At the door to Evgeni’s loft, Viktor is surprised to find all the locks still engaged. He lifts an eyebrow at Yuri.

He looks down and away. “The fire escape,” he admits. “I owe you a window.”

”Ah.” Sure enough, a pane has been knocked out of the windows that face the alleyway. At least Yuri was neat about it. One of Evgeni’s bottles stands on the counter, next to an empty mug. It’s the one with the fat orange cat.

Yuri grabs the mug and thrusts it at VIktor to fill. “I like this cat,” he comments, “Have you seen him?”

”Is that Heathcliff?” Viktor peers at the mug as he fills his own glass.

Yuri’s jaw drops, scandalized. “No! He is Garfield. Heathcliff is a collaborator and an informant. He is no friend of the worker. Garfield just wants to be left alone and to eat lasagna.”

”That is a sound philosophy.”

”He goes his own way. Like me.”

Viktor elects not to respond.

”So,” Yuri is talkative all of a sudden, “while I was looking for you, I met a friend of yours.” He looks until Viktor meets his eyes, “Nice guy. Too young for you Dark, and handsome.” Viktor keeps his face carefully blank. “Ink under his fingernails? He likes you for some reason.”

”Is that so? I hope you were polite.”

Yuri rolls his eyes. It is an annoying habit. “Yeah.” Yuri takes a long drink. “I didn’t think much of him. He said I was too young for this,” he gestures with his mug. “Very brave when he’s arguing with a teenager,” Yuri’s face twists, and Viktor feels an unwelcome pang of sympathy. This life is hard and long, but at least Viktor isn’t forever trapped on the difficult boundary between child and man. Those tender feelings only last as long as it takes Yuri to finish his next sentence. “No spine,” he tsks, “he was shaking like a leaf when I left.”

”What did you do to him?” Viktor can hear the danger in his voice.

Yuri shifts his eyes away, uncomfortable. “I didn’t -” he pauses, “Oh hell with it. Viktor, I’m not trying to -” he bites his lip. “I’m trying to warn you.”

”Thank you for your concern.” His voice is dry, but there’s a pit of ice in his belly.

”You know how stupid it is to get involved with one of them!”

”I’m not inv-”

Yuri ignores his interruption. “It ends one of two ways. Either, A, it works and it’s beautiful and it’s love and fucking doves and puppies and bullshit, then, A sub-heading 1, they decide they want a normal life with someone who can get old with them, not an un-aging freak, or A sub-heading 2, you live happily ever after together for all of fifty years until they die, old and drooling and pathetic. Or, B, they die because you’re a dumbass who gets them killed.” His voice is heavy and bitter. “Either way, you wind up useless and depressed for decades and I don’t want that to happen to you. Because you would be really dramatic and annoying about it and then you wouldn’t teach me what you know.”

Viktor wants to protest, but Yuri isn’t wrong. He wonders which one of the sub-headings Yuri lived through. “What are you trying to tell me?”

”The fucking twins, Viktor.” Yuri sighs. “They found him at the bar. Asked him some questions about you. He must like you. Didn’t tell them anything, but he was rattled.”

”Who?”

”You really have been living under a rock, haven’t you? The fucking Crispino twins? Both immortal. He died first, back in the Renaissance or something, then killed her so they’d live fraternally ever after? Creepy fuckers, always finishing each other’s sentences.”

Viktor was already up, “I have to go -”

”Frankie says relax, man,” Yuri leans back on the couch, looking very satisfied. “He’s safe. I watched. Followed him home with my own two feet. It’s a real shithole. You should probably tip him better.”

Viktor doesn’t know who Frankie is, but Yuri is right. First Cao Bin, now these twins. Everyone seems to want Viktor’s head, and Yuuri will be safer if Viktor stays far away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Poems about death is our theme this time.
> 
> If ye break faith with us who die  
> We shall not sleep, though poppies grow  
> In Flanders fields.
> 
> From In Flanders Fields by John Mccrae


	5. His bad manners and his cold nose

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Viktor and Yuuri chat. Viktor goes shopping and thinks about dogs.
> 
> Oh, right. He is a liar. He has to be. Usually. “I have never lied to you, Yuuri.” That is true, but he doesn’t know why, and that thought troubles him. He also doesn’t know why he feels so protective of Yuuri. Something has taken the tidy box that he keeps his feelings in and given it a hearty shake. Now everything is rattling around loose, and he is afraid that he’ll never get everything packed away again. “I will make them leave you alone.”
> 
> ”How? Because if you say you’re going to kill them, that’s really not going to make me feel any better.”

Monday morning tosses all of Viktor’s good and virtuous intentions out the window. He has just spent two very maddening, contentious, and oddly satisfying hours of training with Yuri, and rewarded himself with a long hot shower. He has neglected the comforts of fine grooming for a long time, not permitting himself the time or security to indulge in such frivolity, but now he finds himself relaxing beneath the hot water, enjoying the balsamy scent of the shampoo. He finds a tidy little leather pouch of grooming tools and spends several minutes in the steamy bathroom trimming his fingernails and rubbing petroleum jelly into the calluses on his palms. He finds a product mysteriously labelled “Hot Oil Treatment” which promises to restore healthy texture and radiance to damaged hair. He peers at himself in the fogged mirror, wondering if his hair is damaged. It seems to be thinning, but that can’t be the case. He drops the box, spilling little tubes of golden oil at the loud buzzing that fills the apartment.

It takes Viktor far too long to realize that, apparently, the shop already _has_ a doorbell. Well, he supposes that’s one task accomplished. He tugs on a pair of sweatpants and looks out the window, standing next to the frame to hide himself from view. It’s hard to tell much. His visitor is swathed in a knit cap and bulky brown coat, scarf obscuring the bottom of the face. He is bouncing on his toes, rubbing hands together, and looking around nervously. He turns to check the street behind him, and Viktor can pick out the blue frames of his glasses. With a sigh, he steps into the light and raps on the glass with a knuckle. Yuuri looks up with a start, and Viktor holds up a finger. Yuuri nods.

Shrugging on a shirt, he makes his way downstairs, bare feet slapping on the wooden staircase. When Viktor unlocks the door, Yuuri bundles gratefully inside, shoving quickly past him. Viktor finds the cold air refreshing, and would like to linger, to clear his head. After his talk with Plisetsky last night, he had decided not to see Yuuri again, or, at least, to keep his distance until he had his feelings more firmly smothered. He has realized that he _wants_ to see Yuuri again. Too much. He casts a brief look up and down the street, then locks the door.

Yuuri clearly has other plans. He’s bouncing from one foot to the other, and blowing into his gloved hands, watching Viktor warily.

”Sorry to barge in so early, but -”

”Come upstairs.” This is a bad idea, if he aims to keep his distance, but it will be warmer.

Yuuri nods, and heads for the staircase without a glance back. A corner of Viktor’s heart is warmed that Yuuri apparently trusts him enough to turn his back to him, now. It’s almost enough to melt the cold logic of his brain that shrieks a warning every time he follows the impulse to get closer to Yuuri.

”Coffee?” He pushes the door open for Yuuri, and gestures to the couch. “I was just about to make some.”

Yuuri shakes his head as he sits. “No thanks. I won’t stay long.”

”Do you mind if I -” Viktor gestures toward the kitchen. It’s a way to keep his hands busy, to keep some space between them.

”Yeah, go ahead - Viktor, I need to tell you. I don’t what you’re involved in -”

“Yuuri, I’m -” He is going to apologize. He isn’t planning to tell Yuuri the truth. He has already spoken too plainly.

“And, la la la, I can’t hear you!” He covers his ears and squeezes his eyes closed. Then he opens them and fixes Viktor with a determined stare. “I _really_ don’t want to know anymore than I already do. I need plausible deniability if the cops start asking me questions.” He takes a deep breath, like he’s determined to deliver whatever message brought him. “People are looking for you. Creepy, intimidating people. Is this some kind of mafia thing? Russians have a mafia, right, and these two were Italian… Oh god, is that what this is? Am I involved with the mob now?” His voice is gaining a hysterical edge. “Am I going to have to start paying protection? Should I figure out how to join the yakuza? Can you even just do that?”

”I’m sorry. I’ll take care of it.”

Yuuri moans and flops forward, letting his head hang down, almost between his knees. “I used to have a quiet life. I _liked_ having a quiet life.”

Viktor can imagine. That’s a lie. He can’t imagine having anything that could be called a normal life, but it looks like Evgeni had had it, and Viktor is starting to be able to picture it, at least in small bursts, like the flash from a camera, lighting up a dark room. Of course, it was never his. He was borrowing this life from a dead man. He’d stumbled into it by chance, and had dragged darkness along with him. “I promise. I will fix this.”

Yuuri scoffs, head still down.

Viktor bristles. “I’m not a liar.” He wrenches open a cabinet and pulls out a canister of coffee.

”Of course you are!” He lifts his head and gives Viktor a very pointed look.

Oh, right. He is a liar. He has to be. Usually. “I have never lied to you, Yuuri.” That is true, but he doesn’t know why, and that thought troubles him. He also doesn’t know why he feels so protective of Yuuri. Something has taken the tidy box that he keeps his feelings in and given it a hearty shake. Now everything is rattling around loose, and he is afraid that he’ll never get everything packed away again. “I will make them leave you alone.”

”How? Because if you say you’re going to kill them, that’s really not going to make me feel any better.”

”I don’t know.” There is an obvious answer. “I should go.” Leave town, go somewhere else, pick a fight, make sure word gets back to this JJ, these twins. He couldn’t stay here forever. He could have, what? Twenty, maybe thirty years. He should leave now because it will only become harder to leave if he gets more comfortable.

”You should go.” Yuuri says it, just like that, with the weight of truth behind it. Viktor flinches. He can’t help it. “It’s not safe for you here.”

A laugh tears from his throat. Safe. Viktor was just starting to learn what safe felt like. He has been uprooted for so long. “Your concern is touching.” His voice sounds rough. He picks up the kettle that he had abandoned in the sink and sets it on a burner with a clunk.

Yuuri doesn’t say anything, but he stands and comes into the kitchen. He looks at Viktor for a moment, then he lifts the empty kettle and fills it from the faucet. He sets it back on the burner and comes to stand in front of Viktor. He looks up, forcing Viktor to either meet his eyes or looks away. He reaches up, tentatively, and brushes Viktor’s bangs back. “Are you okay?”

”Yes. Of course I am.” He brushes Yuuri’s hand away and turns back to measure coffee into the Chemex.

”Liar.” He says it softly, and Viktor’s shoulders jerk up, tense and defensive.

”It’s fine. I’ll be gone by nightfall. They will leave you alone. I’ll make sure of it.”

A long silence stretches between them. “Do you really want to leave?” Yuuri asks, his voice gentle.

”Do you want me to?” He dares a look at Yuuri’s face. He is smiling.

”No,” he says. “I don’t. I’m scared, and I don’t understand what’s going on. But I think I’m in it now, whether you’re here or not.”

”Oh.”

”Vitya?” The diminutive catches him off-guard. Of course, Yuuri must have picked this up from Evgeni. _Vitya_ isn’t one he uses frequently. Viktor isn’t even always his name. But still, it has a nice friendly sound, and he wants Yuuri to say it again.

”Yes?” Viktor can’t look anywhere but at Yuuri’s lips. They are a little chapped from the wind.

”Is it okay if I call you that?”

”Yes.”

”Because if I’m going to kiss you it seems weird to keep calling you Viktor.”

”Are you going to kiss me?”

”I was thinking about it. You know, eventually.” Viktor looks up to meet Yuuri’s eyes. They flutter closed as Yuuri leans toward him, lips slightly parted and chin tilted up invitingly.

The kettle shatters the moment with a shrill whistle and Viktor jerks back with a startled laugh.

”Well, shit,” Yuuri mutters, gently grasping Viktor’s forearms. He looks behind Viktor at the black cat clock twitching its tail on the wall, straightening his glasses to see better. “I’ve got to go - I have a lab at ten.” He sighs. “Look, don’t, like, leave town or anything. Come by the bar tonight. I need someone scary to walk me home.”

 

 

Viktor occupies the day walking around the city. He finds the law offices of Leroy, Yang, & Associates. His new suit fails to gain him entry, and he has no better luck in requesting an appointment, but he has confirmed that the offices would be easy enough to break into. Maybe he can recruit Yuri to assist him. He suspects the young Russian would enjoy providing a distraction, especially if he can guarantee a fight.

There is a very pleasant park across the street, or would be if it weren’t December in Buffalo. The only people about are either very hardy souls or they have nowhere else to go. An old man in a long coat is walking a dog, a poodle, past the monument and Viktor looks away and clears his throat. The cold pricks at the corners of his eyes and he stands abruptly, passing a dollar to a homeless man on his way up the stairs.

It’s only the afternoon, but the flavor of night is already in the air. The solstice isn’t far off, and downtown is decorated in the red and green of winter festivities, lights beginning to twinkle in shop windows. Viktor finds himself walking far and fast, his new shoes raising blisters across the knuckles of his toes, but he is full of restless energy and can’t seem to be still. He hasn’t eaten since a scattered attempt at breakfast just after Yuuri left, but he has kept himself warm with cup after cup of coffee during his wanderings.

A window display catches his eye and he stands still for a moment, watching an electric train run its course around a meticulously detailed miniature city. It makes six, maybe seven loops before he notices the cashier watching him suspiciously. He smiles widely and opens the door.

The interior is almost unpleasantly warm after the frigid day. It is also full of noise. Children are chattering excitedly, begging harried looking adults for gifts. A woman with a pinched face keeps murmuring something about Christmas, but the child is not deterred. He wonders what possessed her to torment the child with shiny things that he can’t have.

A pair of shiny black eyes draws him to a display near the cash register. Ignoring the glare of the proprietor, Viktor steps close. There is a mountain of droopy faced stuffed dogs, each in a little box shaped like a house. One is brown, furrier than the rest, with large floppy ears that remind him of a lamb. Just like his Makkachin used to have. He picks up the box and stares into its plastic eyes.

”Hey, buddy. Buy the dog or get out.”

Viktor sets the box on the counter, and extracts his wallet. “How much?”

 

 

He leaves the store with both a Pound Puppy and a plush Garfield. It has a smarmy smile and half-lidded eyes that give it a faintly lecherous appearance, but he thinks that Yuri will like it, even though he will never admit to such a foible.

He returns to his diner and orders the stuffed peppers. They come stuffed with lamb and atop some sort of tiny pasta that he has never seen before. He cleans his plate, except for the sad wedge of whitish tomato that accompanies his salad, and orders more coffee. The waitress seems to recognize him from the previous night and tries to coax him into ordering a slice of pie, but it is finally late enough to go see Yuuri. 

He walks quickly toward Main Street, ignoring the slush that passing cars splash onto the sidewalk, forcing him to dodge the icy splatter with every other step, and the increasing numbness at the tips of his ears, and the pain from his blistered feet. Tomorrow he’ll buy some thicker socks.

He follows the faint orange flashing to the end of the block, and steps into the bar, a lightness to his steps that he hasn’t felt in years.

Yuuri isn’t there.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Our theme is poems about death.
> 
> "Some day I'll join him right there,  
> but now he's gone with his shaggy coat,  
> his bad manners and his cold nose,  
> and I, the materialist, who never believed  
> in any promised heaven in the sky  
> for any human being,  
> I believe in a heaven I'll never enter."
> 
> From A Dog Has Died by Pablo Neruda
> 
> So, yeah, I guess I killed Makkachin. Sorry 'bout that. I didn't think this was going to go so dark.


	6. Behind the boathouse I'll show you my dark secret

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yuuri meets a fan, and Phichit makes a startling discovery.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A short chapter again, but I needed a stopping point. The next one will be...hefty.

Yuuri spent the morning in a lab about mold remediation before he made it over to the print shop. He snagged an egg-salad sandwich in one of those plastic triangles and ate it while he walked. He dribbled mayonnaise on his coat, but it was a small price to pay when he was actually able to snag the little tabletop platen press. The Vandercook is in use, but he likes this one better anyway. It’s a pleasant surprise; this close to the end of the semester, the shop is usually full of students trying to get their final projects editioned. His agreement with Prof Cialdi gives him all-hours access to the shop, provided he gives the registered students first access to all the equipment and supplies his own ink.

He doesn’t need much. Yuuri prefers to work in miniature, finely detailed engravings on wood or copper, the occasional mezzotint. Soon he’ll need to print up some more endpapers. He has almost run out of the pelican pattern he was using. Maybe he’ll do some marbles or paste paper next. People always like the marbles. Herdman’s will usually buy his decorative papers. He makes a note to make some extra. His musing stops as he opens his locker. Shit. He’s almost out of Hahnemuhle. He’ll have to order more.

It’s nice to be in familiar surroundings. It’s hard to reconcile the drama and fear of the weekend with the fluorescent lights and heavy scent of ink and lithotine.

He pulls out the block and holds it up to the paper, skeptically. It’s just shy of postcard-sized. A tidy Victorian rooming house stands proudly behind a riotous garden barely contained by a wrought iron fence. He grabs a drawer of 10 point Fournier and carefully sets out the words “Utopia Bath, Bed & Breakfast - est. 1949” beneath the block and gets everything aligned in the chase. He mixes up a nice color, almost black, with just a hint of green. Some undergrad is playing Devo and Yuuri bops his head along to “Gut Feeling” while he works the handle to ink the rollers.

He has just finished measuring his paper when the other student sidles up to him.

”Sorry, I’ll be out of your way in a second.”

He looks up, startled, when a soft gasp erupts next to him. He uses his shoulder to push up his glasses and sees a kid who looks _maybe_ twelve. Have the students here always been so young? He’s got a mop of wild blond hair with a patch at the front dyed a bright red. The kid is staring at him with a peculiar look on his face. Yuuri brushes at his chin. Does he have egg salad on his face? He finishes tearing down the paper and gets out of the way.

The kid is still staring at him, but he looks disappointed somehow. That’s a look that is easier to parse. Yuuri is frequently disappointed in himself. He goes back to his corner and pulls a quick test print on some newsprint. All good. He clips in the first piece of creamy paper and watches carefully, checking his registration as he pulls the handle. Perfect. It looks like an ad from one of those old frontier catalogs. He has enough paper to print off 36 and decides to go for it. It will make a nice Christmas present for his parents. He has already set aside one of his last run of t-shirts for Mari. His family is relatively sympathetic to the financial plight of a graduate student.

As he re-inks his rollers, adding a little more blue this time, he notices the undergrad still watching him from beneath his red bangs. He’s working on a large zinc plate, drawing into a hard ground with a stylus, and chewing on his lower lip as he watches Yuuri works. “How’s it going over there?” Yuuri finally asks.

The kids eyes widen and he looks behind him, then back at Yuuri. He points to himself and mouths “Me?” Yuuri nods. Other than Prof Cialdi in his office, and another couple of procrastinators just now grinding out litho stones, they have the shop to themselves. “Um, okay, I guess,” the kid squeaks.

”Okay, good.” Yuuri goes back to his work, no more enlightened than before.

”You’re the guy who does the bookplates, right?”

”Uh, yeah. That’s me.” Yuuri is surprised that a student has noticed. Sure he leaves his work on the drying rack, and he’s in and out of the shop all the time, but it’s not like he’s working on anything earth shattering. He work is a little too traditional to be truly en vogue during this very pop-art, PoMo, conceptual era. Even the concept of a bookplate is faintly anachronistic.

”Wow,” the kid breaths. “You’re really good. I thought it was a professor or something.”

”Uh, just a grad student. Art Conservation. What about you?”

“Well, I’m just a freshman, so I haven’t declared yet. I thought I wanted to do painting, but I really like printmaking so far.” His enthusiasm is infectious, and Yuuri finds himself wanting to encourage the kid. It also helps to shove his worries even further down. Deliberate obliviousness is probably not the safest or smartest tactic, but he spent yesterday in a stew of distress, seasoned disproportionately with romantic pining, and today, he just wants to pretend that his life is normal for a couple of hours. Is that too much to ask?

“Can I see it?”

Yuuri had thought the kid’s eyes were already as wide as they could get, but he is quickly proven wrong. “Will you give me a critique? Oh my god, this is amazing, a critique from my idol!” He stops suddenly and frowns. “I don’t even know your name! Oh my god, what is wrong with me?” he wails, smacking his head against the table. He has a scrap of newspaper in his hair when he lifts his head.

“Hey, it’s okay. I don’t know your name either. I’m Yuuri Katsuki.”

“Kenjirou Minami!”

“Okay, Minami-kun, let me see.”

 

 

The conversation with Minami kept him longer than he meant, and the light is already starting to fade when he leave the shop. The warm distraction has worn off and Yuuri finds himself watching the shadows intently as he walks. He can’t help the shriek that escapes him when a shadowy figure grabs his elbow.

”Woah. It’s me, Yuuri,” Phichit whispers in his ear.

”Phichit. What. The. Fuck.” Yuuri gasps once his heart stops pounding in his ears.

”Sorry, sorry! I’ve been looking for you everywhere. I _have_ to show you something. Like, now.” Phichit voice is low and urgent, and Yuuri’s fright seems to be contagious, because Phichit is also looking around.

”Okay, cool, but I have to be at work in, shit, an hour.”

”No you don’t. I called Leo. He’s going to cover for you until you can get there. Yuuri, just come to the library with me. Something really fucking weird is going on.”

Phichit is studying Art History and working on a thesis about representations of the male nude in Renaissance art, or as Phichit calls it, Old Masturbators. Needless to say, he spends a lot of time in the library. If Phichit is dragging Yuuri to the library to show him yet another image of the dingus of the Christ Child, he is going to blow something up.

”So, I got tired of looking at Italian cock,”

”Now, there’s a phrase I never thought I’d hear.”

“Shut up. So anyway, I wandered down to the basement, and I was thinking about your little problem. So I started playing around with the microfilm readers,” Yuuri is following him down the echoing cinder block stairwell, “and, well, I’ll just have to show you.”

Phichit points him toward a reader in the corner.

He switches it on. Yuuri is clueless about how these things work. “Okay, cool, nobody messed with it.” He twiddles some knobs and pages flit across the screen, faster than Yuuri can track them. “Okay, there. Look at that.” Phichit sounds satisfied.

“It’s Evgeni. So what?”

“Look at the year.”

“Uh, 19-” Yuuri squints, “50?” He looks up at Phichit. “So what. It’s his dad. Mom said Evgeni looked just like his father.”

Phichit flaps a hand dismissively. “There’s ‘strong family resemblance’ and the ‘fucking identical.’ Whatever. Now, look at this -” he removes a cartridge, looks at the label of another and loads it, scrolling again. He stops and points again. It’s a group of men in front of a bridge bearing a plaque that reads “Works Progress Administration - 1935.” In the middle of the back row is a tall blond with a bulbous nose. Evgeni. “What? Maybe he looked just like his grandfather, too.” He loads another cartridge. Judging from the typeface (Yuuri know typefaces) this one is significantly older. It’s illustrated with engravings rather than photographs, but a brief and frankly xenophobic article about the recent influx of Russian Jewish immigrants includes a quote from an Evgeni who has opened a bookstore in downtown Buffalo. The date? 1887.

“Phichit, he’s just named after a family member. All of this doesn’t _mean_ anything!” 

“Well, wait! I forgot to show you what got me started on this!” He rifles through a stack of books, hauling out a heavy one with a cracked spine.

He shoves it onto Yuuri’s lap with a thunk and opens it roughly to a page marked with a torn sheet of looseleaf. Yuuri cringes in sympathy as he hears the glue crack. “See anyone familiar?”

It’s an altarpiece, a triptych, depicting the Madonna and Child. The side wings are full of saints and figures that must be the donors. Yuuri squints, pulling the book into the light. There. In the corner is a figure in a suit of armor. A young man with reddish hair and a familiar scowl. Next to him, is a beautiful woman, her violet gaze looking out at the viewer. Like she’s ready to order a gin and tonic in December.

 

 

”Yuuri! Yuuri! Wait, where are you going?” Phichit has to jog to catch up to him.

”To work! I don’t have time for this.”

”But, you saw it, right? They looked just like your weirdos from the other night.”

”It’s a coincidence! Lots of people look alike.”

”Not like that, they don’t!”

Yuuri stops and faces his friend. “Okay, fine. What’s your explanation?”

That stops Phichit. He opens his mouth and closes it a couple of times.

Yuuri keeps walking.

”Wait. I don’t know, but it’s something.” He gasps, “What if they’re time travelling robots?”

”That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.”

Phichit huffs. “Well, you’re no Sarah Connor. That’s for sure.”

Yuuri rolls his eyes, but he’s busy replaying his conversation with Viktor. 

_“It’s dumb, but he seemed like he would be here forever._ ”

_“What makes you say that?”_

_“I’m employing dramatic hyperbole. Obviously I don’t mean that literally. It’s just, here, this shop, I mean. It’s been here forever, and Zhenya’s family has always owned it. My mom says he looks looked _just_ like his dad.”_

Viktor had looked startled, frightened. Yuuri had thought it was just his own distress that had upset the other man, but now, he wonders.

Phichit is still going, “Yuuri, they could _still_ be aliens? Or time travelers that _aren’t_ robots. Or maybe - that’s it! - they’re vampires. And they killed Evgeni because, because…”

Yuuri doesn’t know. “I need to talk to Viktor.”

”Who?”

Shit. He hadn’t meant to say that out loud. Too late now. “The guy they were looking for.”

”Wait, Yuuri, you knew who they were looking for, and you didn’t tell me? Wow.” Phichit looks offended. “Fine. Go talk to Viktor, then.” Yuuri watches realization dawn on him. “Wait. _Viktor_! Your silver fox? He’s involved with this?”

Yuuri nods miserably, “He’s the one who k- who told me what happened to Evgeni.” Maybe that will be enough to satisfy Phichit.

”Yuuri!” Phichit shrieks.

”I know.”

”Yuuri!”

”Phichit.”

”Yuuri!”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Poems about death is our theme
> 
> "I'm not gonna lie  
> I'll not be a gentleman  
> Behind the boathouse  
> I'll show you my dark secret"
> 
> From Possum Kingdom by The Toadies.


	7. For I am shamed by that which I bring forth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It’s only a moment before Sara attacks in earnest, light on her feet, her movements graceful and sure. Viktor manages to defend himself, but he feels off-balance, heavy. It’s like that old dream of running, and his legs feel like he’s dragging them through molasses. He’s filled, not with fear, but with shame. A millennia of winning, and now, when it matters, when it is not only his life at stake, he will lose. He knows it as surely as he has ever known anything. _I’m sorry, Yuuri,_ he thinks as he slips on a patch of ice falling heavily on his ass, and Sara advances, sword ready.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: Viktor is not in a good place at the beginning of the chapter. Also, spoilers: I apparently can't write a fic in which everyone has a normal relationship with alcohol.
> 
> Am I mean enough to post this? Yes. Yes, I am.
> 
> Heed the tags, people.

Viktor doesn’t know how long he’s been sitting at the bar, but he knows that he lost count of how many times the Hamm’s sign cycled through the deer, teepee, waterfall scene after fifty rotations. He’s the only person in the bar except for the bartender. He tries hard not to hate the young man, but he’s not Yuuri and Viktor is finding that hard to forgive, no matter how much vodka the fellow pours.

Viktor also lost track of how many times not-Yuuri refilled his glass roughly around the time that he lost track of the deer, teepee, waterfall, deer, teepee, waterfall. He supposes he’s drunk. He supposes Yuuri isn’t coming to work tonight. He supposes he could go back to the shop and call the number from the invoice, but he stays where he is and lifts his index finger. The bartender pushes his long hair back and gives him a look and a shake of his head. Viktor scoffs and upends his glass over his mouth. His lips are a little numb.

The door opens with a jingle and the bartender looks up.

”Leo! I’m so sorry -” It’s Yuuri. Yuuri! He lifts his head to look over his shoulder. The room keeps spinning for longer than it should.

”It’s cool. I owe Phichit one.” He tosses a mock-salute at the other not-Yuuri individual in the room. It’s the young man from the other night. The one with shiny black hair and shiny black eyes. The one who always looks happy.

He leans close, too close, to Yuuri and says, “vampires.” He looks at Viktor and adds, cryptically, “probably not robots.”

Yuuri doesn’t respond, which means that Viktor will probably never learn what Phichit-not-Yuuri was talking about. What a shame. Yuuri does walk over and look at him. Viktor tries to smile because Yuuri looks worried, and Viktor wants Yuuri to know that Viktor is fine. “Vitya?”

Phichit-not-Yuuri groans, throws up his hands in defeat and climbs onto a stool. Leo-not-Yuuri pours him a shot of something brown. He downs it in one and leans an elbow on the bar, watching Yuuri avidly. Viktor doesn’t blame him. He likes watching Yuuri, too.

Yuuri is talking about something with Leo-not-Yuuri. Viktor can’t quite make sense of it, but Yuuri extracts his wallet with a wince and tries to hand Leo-not-Yuuri a couple of bills. They argue back and forth for a bit, and Yuuri eventually puts his money away. “Okay, yeah, I owe you.”

Leo-not-Yuuri looks satisfied, but he does say, “It’s cool. He’s a good tipper, and he didn’t say much. Just introduced me to a stuffed dog.” He leans forward and whispers at Yuuri, as if Viktor can’t hear. “It was weird. Please take him home.” He gives Viktor a wary glance. Phichit-not-Yuuri laughs, which makes Yuuri smile a little. That makes Viktor smile. He wants to see Yuuri smile again.

Yuuri nods, with that determined look on his face, and touches Viktor’s elbow. “Come on, Vitya. It’s time for bed.”

Viktor gasps. That is an _amazing_ idea. He decides to say so. “Yuuri! That is an amazing idea! We should sleep together!” Both of the not-Yuuris make a strangled coughing sound.

Yuuri’s cheeks turn pink, but he steadies Viktor as he climbs off the stool. Had it always been so tall? He starts to follow Yuuri, but there is something important that he’s forgetting. They are almost out the door when Leo-not-Yuuri calls out, “Sir? You forgot your, um, dog.”

His Makkachin! He has already nearly forgotten her, his best, lovingest friend. Now he can’t even take care of a toy dog. How can he have forgotten so many things that matter? He jogs back to the bar, feet still perfectly steady, he is pleased to note. It is just the room that is tipping, spinning, falling away around him. It steadies when he picks up the shopping bag and he straightens, saluting Leo-not-Yuuri, because that is he had done earlier.

”Okay!” The word rings out like a song and he takes Yuuri hand and pulls him through the door. There’s a pleasant soft buzz in the air around him and he feels something like hope for the first time in centuries.

It has started to snow and the flakes catch the light and dance around them as they walk. Viktor wants to talk to Yuuri, to tell him about his day, about how sharp and real everything feels now. He wants to tell him about the tiny pasta at dinner and the tiny village around the tiny train. He wants to tell him about his Makkachin, the toy and the grumpy shopkeeper who took his money, but mostly about the _real_ Makkachin, whom he had somehow forgotten until today. Not forgotten, not really, he remembered that he’s had a dog, and that he’d loved her. He had forgotten, though, until today how it had felt when she had looked at him with love and trust every single day. He had forgotten how stinky she got when she swam in the river, how much she like to steal food from his plate, how excited she got whenever he took her somewhere new.

He had forgotten how it felt when she got old, as all things, all other things, do. When she had trouble walking, her back legs collapsing under her when she would try to walk. He had forgotten the soft, sharp sounds she made when it hurt too much, and way her tail would still thump when she heard his voice. He had forgotten the soft sigh when the light left her. Now he remembers. He remembers it all, and he wants to tell Yuuri, but it’s too much.

”Vitya?” Now they are standing in front of his door and Yuuri is looking at him expectantly. “The key, Vitya?”

”Oh, of course.” It takes him a few tries to get it into the lock, but then they are inside. Viktor takes Yuuri’s hand and tugs him up the stairs.

Yuuri takes off his coat, then he hangs Viktor’s up, too. “Here, you should drink some water.” He pauses. “You should drink a lot of water.”

”Okay,” Viktor agrees because water does sound very good right now.

Yuuri returns and sits next to him. He hands Viktor a glass, and he drinks it greedily, spilling some on his shirt. It’s the nice one, the new one. Viktor feels a little bit guilty that he isn’t taking better care of his things. Yuuri has been very quiet tonight. When he speaks, though, Viktor can tell that he isn’t saying what he really means. “So, Zhenya really liked to collect antiques, huh?” That’s what he says but Viktor doesn’t know what he does mean.

Viktor answers anyway, honestly, even though he has a vague memory that he’s supposed to lie about this. He has another memory, though, a stronger one, that says he doesn’t want to lie to Yuuri. “These things were new when he got them.”

A reflection in his glasses hides Yuuri’s eyes from him. “Oh? I guess Zhenya was pretty old then, huh?” There’s something trembling in his voice.

”Not that old,” Viktor replies. “Not as old as me,” he adds.

Yuuri’s thigh had been pressing against his. He moves it away now, and Viktor leg feels cold. “Oh? How old are you?” Yuuri’s voice is a whisper.

”I don’t know anymore,” Viktor murmurs. His eyes won’t stay open. “Yuuri? Are you going to kiss me? You said you would?”

”Maybe in the morning.”

Viktor nods and falls asleep, warm and happy and not alone.

 

 

He wakes with a pounding head and a mouth that tastes like death. Viktor would know. He had died, more times, more ways than he can count. It’s cold. Too cold, even for him. There’s a light pounding in from the other side of his eyelids. With a groan, he wrenches his eyes open, blinking to clear the bright haze. Then he hears it, the sound that must have roused him.

A whimper.

”Yuuri?”

”Good morning, Mr. Nikiforov,” says a pleasant voice. A shadow passes in front of the light source. It’s a woman, long dark hair, shining eyes of indeterminate color. “How are you feeling?”

”Where’s Yuuri?”

”Oh, yes, of course. My apologies.” She moves to the side. Yuuri is seated in one of Evgeni’s several comfy chairs, hands awkwardly behind him and a bruise blooming across his left cheekbone. He’s looking down, as if he’s afraid to look at Viktor. Another man is half-sitting on the arm of the chair, a gun casually held to Yuuri’s temple. He is the same apparent age as the woman, but there’s no warm shine to his eyes, just a simmering rage.

”Yuuri,” he pleads, “I’m so sorry.”

Yuuri doesn’t look up. The man grabs his chin roughly and forces his face toward Viktor’s. “He’s talking to you.” Yuuri tries to shake his hand off, eyes flashing with defiance. The man slaps him. “You should listen to your betters.”

”Mickey.” The woman chides, “be nice to our new friend.”

Yuuri looks at Viktor, then, eyes narrowed and not fearful, as Viktor had expected, though he cheeks are streaked with tear tracks. “It’s fine, Vitya.” He looks angry, determined. Ready. Somehow, it breaks Viktor’s heart.

He looks away from Yuuri, even though it almost hurts him to do it. “So, you’re the twins I’ve been hearing so much about.”

The woman nods politely. “Sara Crispino. My brother, Michele -” she gestures to the man menacing Yuuri. “It’s an honor to finally meet the living legend.” She stands. “This is a nice place. It would be a shame to damage such a collection. Mr. Le Roi is quite keen on antiques.” She turns her violet gaze on Viktor. “Perhaps you have a suggestion?”

Viktor nods politely. “I prefer an open space myself. The roof is quite nice.”

”Perfect. Mickey? I’m sure Mr. Katsuki will enjoy the show.” Michele yanks Yuuri up. Once on his feet, Yuuri wrenches his arm back. Michele just smirks and moves his aim to the base of Yuuri’s skull. Sara tosses his coat to him with a smile. “Lead the way, then.”

Viktor stomach churns as they climb the ladder to the roof. His head is still swimming and his throat feels raw. He wants to be able to talk to Yuuri, to tell him that everything will be okay. The words would come out wrong, though, because he has the terrible feeling that it actually won’t be okay.

Viktor pushes the heavy door open. It catches on snow that has drifted against it, the cold air filling Viktor’s lungs, simultaneously invigorating and nauseating.

Sara looks around. It’s an open space, interrupted by the occasional vent, humped by drifted snow. The main chimney is a dark mass at the center, and their steps leave dark footprints in the snow. The only light is from a distant moon, diffused through the heavy cloud cover. “Very atmospheric,” she says with approval, drawing her rapier.

Yuuri makes a noise, a choking sort of a gasp.

”Shut up and watch my sister win.”

Viktor draws his own sword. They circle each other. Sara is a cautious fighter, feinting, testing Viktor’s reflexes. She moves with the contained athleticism of a dancer. Viktor, meanwhile, moves like an old man. It isn’t the drink or, at least, not only that. He is exhausted in a way he has never felt, and distracted by every little shift and sound from the two men observing them.

It’s only a moment before Sara attacks in earnest, light on her feet, her movements graceful and sure. Viktor manages to defend himself, but he feels off-balance, heavy. It’s like that old dream of running, and his legs feel like he’s dragging them through molasses. He’s filled, not with fear, but with shame. A millennia of winning, and now, when it matters, when it is not only his life at stake, he will lose. He knows it as surely as he has ever known anything. _I’m sorry, Yuuri,_ he thinks as he slips on a patch of ice falling heavily on his ass, and Sara advances, sword ready.

What happens next isn’t completely clear. All he knows is that a scuffle breaks out behind him. He hears Michele swear, and a shout from Yuuri. He looks up to see Yuuri running toward him, his eyes bright and as beautiful as anything Viktor has ever seen. There’s a sound, sharp, percussive. It rings in his ears, echoing off the bricks of the buildings around them, and Yuuri falls.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that seems like a good place for a cliff-hanger!
> 
> Poems about death continues to be our theme.
> 
> "O lest the world should task you to recite  
> What merit lived in me that you should love  
> After my death, dear love, forget me quite,  
> For you in me can nothing worthy prove;  
> Unless you would devise some virtuous lie,  
> To do more for me than mine own desert,  
> And hang more praise upon deceasèd I  
> Than niggard truth would willingly impart.  
> O lest your true love may seem false in this,  
> That you for love speak well of me untrue,  
> My name be buried where my body is,  
> And live no more to shame nor me nor you.  
> For I am shamed by that which I bring forth,  
> And so should you, to love things nothing worth."
> 
> Sonnet 72 by William Shakespeare


	8. I Could not Stop for Death

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Viktor breaks into a morgue. He has help.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I haven't abandoned this. Sorry about leaving it on that particular cliff hanger. This is going darker than I intended. Go figure. next chapter we should get a nice training montage, and teh slow starts to burn in earnest.
> 
> I didn't stop at killing off Makkachin, and I probably won't stop with Yuuri. see end notes for a content warning.

Viktor wakes with a start, head mercifully clear. He’s on his couch, a glass of water on the table in front of him. For a long merciful minute, he is able to believe that his fractured memories are just fragments of dreams from a fitful night of sleep. A puff of bluish smoke wafts across his vision, accompanied by a strange smell: sweet and foul all of once. His nose twitches and he sits up. 

”Fucking finally.” Yuri Plisetsky is sitting in an armchair, slumped as low as possible, feet up on the coffee table. He puffs at the cigar again, then tips his head back to blow a smoke rings toward the ceiling. “I was getting bored, old man.”

”Yuuri...”

”Yeah, I’m right here, loser.”

Viktor is up now, frantic. “Not you! Where is Yuuri?”

”Are you senile as well as a drunk? I’m Yuri!”

“No,” he whispers, “The other Yuuri. From the bar.”

“Ugh. The piggy’s name is Yuri, too?” An ugly sneer crosses his face.

Viktor is in front of him in three quick strides, lifting him bodily from his chair by the collar of his shirt. “Where is he?”

“I do not usually say ‘I told you so,’ but…” Yuri shakes him off, brushing cigar ash from his jacket, “But, I fucking warned you, and you went and did the stupidest possible -” He looks at Viktor’s face and stops. “I don’t know. Crispino threw him from the roof.”

Viktor drops into his chair. “Is he -”

“I dunno. I was close - saw the light show. Someone called the ambulance. It was all I could do to get you hidden before someone carted you off, too.”

“You let them take him?!”

“What the fuck else was I supposed to do?”

“I have to go - I need to see him.”

“Viktor, he’s probably already…” Dead, he doesn’t say. It’s rare restraint from him, and Viktor is grateful.

“Yuri,” he pleads. He’s not ashamed. “I just need to be there.”

“Not like that you don’t.” Yuri points.

He looks down. His pretty new shirt, the one in salmon silk, is ruined. It has been soaked through with blood which has dried to a leathery sheen. He slides a finger through the neat hole just above the left breast pocket. He stands, torn between discretion and action.

Yuri sighs, running a hand through his long hair. “Go change. I’m gonna figure out where he is.” He goes to the kitchen and starts dialing. He works quickly. By the time Viktor strips out of his ruined clothes and pulls on something else, Yuri is wrapping up a phone call. “Okay, they took him to County. I got a ride coming.”

 

 

Yuri’s “ride” turns out to be a dark skinned young man waiting in an alley with an idling motorbike. He and Viktor assess each other warily. The driver finally nods and Yuri climbs up behind him, gesturing Viktor to the sidecar. “Thanks Beka. Old man, this is Otabek.” Yuri frowns. “Otabek, meet Viktor.” Viktor waves vaguely as he tries to fold his legs into the cramped space, too distracted to take much notice.

With a noisy rev of the engine, they’re off, speeding through the dark streets.

 

 

Otabek has barely stopped outside the emergency room before Viktor is out, rushing to the desk.

“Can I help you?” The receptionist looks formidable, and Viktor doesn’t have time to pretend.

“A young man, Asian. Gunshot. Would have come in a couple of hours ago?”

“You family?”

“No - I need to see him.”

She frowns, and taps at the keyboard. Something she sees on the screen gives her pause. She glances up at Viktor’s face, then plasters on the blandest customer service smile he’s ever seen. “I’m so sorry. He...um...let me get someone for you.”

“Where is he?”

“I can’t give out that information.”

“Then get me someone who can!”

“Calm down sir. I’ll be right back.” She walks briskly down the hall with many a backward glance at Viktor.

As soon as she’s gone, he darts around the desk. The information on the screen is sparse. Asian male, 25-30 years of age. Gunshot wound to the spine, broken bones. Pronounced dead shortly after arrival. County Medical Examiner picked up the body just over an hour ago. Viktor glances up. He can see the receptionist in the reflection from the doors. She is walking back down the hall, accompanied by a man in uniform. He doesn’t stick around.

He’s around the desk and back out into the icy morning air. He can hear them shouting after him, but he’s gone, back into the sidecar.

Otabek pulls off, without waiting for instructions. Yuri is shouting at him, but he can’t hear it over the roar of the engine. Or maybe not. After a couple of minutes he realizes that they are stopped in the parking lot of a school, and Yuri’s voice finally cuts through the rush of blood and the ringing in his ears.

“What the fuck, Viktor?”

“You were right, Yuri. You were right.”

“Of course I was, you idiot.” His voice is surprisingly gentle. “I told you this would happen. They die, you know this.”

“Yes,” he lets his forehead fall, resting it on his knees. His head is light and his heart pounds hard enough to break his ribs.

A heavy hand clasps his shoulder. “You must breathe,” Otabek suggests.

Viktor sees it, then. Yuuri on his couch, grasping Viktor’s hand, matching his breaths with Viktor’s. It’s right there, in his mind. The wideness of Yuuri’s eyes. The warmth of his hand, the way he made Viktor’s head feel all warm and buzzy. Oh. _Oh._

He can’t help the smile that spreads across his face. Yuri takes one look at him and shakes his head. “I knew this would happen,” he mutters, “Beka, never let me get that old.” Otabek looks unimpressed. 

Viktor stands up and sets off back toward the medical park.

“Viktor! What are you doing.”

“I’m going to break into the morgue.”

“What?”

Then, because it would be rude not to offer, he says, “would you gentlemen like to help?”

 

 

”I can’t believe we’re doing this.”

Otabek shrugs.

It isn’t much of a plan. They don’t have time and Viktor is still too frantic to think clearly. Besides, as Yuri keeps pointing out, there’s no guarantee that Viktor is right. Le Roi’s people have been hunting Viktor, watching him for who knows how long. There’s no reason to be sure that Yuuri was the source of the faint buzz Viktor had felt. It is just as possible that Yuuri is just _gone_ , in the regular, natural, normal way that people sometimes _go_. But that slim hope, the slim chance that Viktor is right, the chance the Yuuri could revive alone, frightened, locked in a freezer, when Viktor could prevent it, is the only thing stopping him from melting into a gross grey slurry of grief and guilt. “You know we’re just going to get arrested for stealing a corpse, right?”

“Have a little faith, Yuri. Consider it part of your training.”

“When he starts stinking, he’s your problem.”

Otabek, clearly the voice of reason, drops to the ground from his position at the window, “Okay, the lounge is empty.” He looks expectantly at Yuri.

“Why me?” Yuri asks, even though he knows the answer. Yuri is the only one of them small enough to fit through the narrow window. He gives a long suffering sigh as Viktor laces his fingers for a boost. With a heave and a scramble, Yuri is through.

Viktor and Otabek both chin themselves up to look through behind him.

The lounge is small and dingy, metal folding chairs around a chipped laminate table. There’s an ashtray in the middle, and an industrial coffee pot next to a large tub of Vap-o-rub. There’s a saggy couch in an exuberant but yellowed floral print. Metal lockers line one wall, and Yuri heads straight for them. The first couple are empty. The third is too full, backpack, change of clothes. Yuri moves on. As he tries the fifth door, a phone starts to ring. Yuri’s eyes dart to the window. Viktor and Otabek gesture, Viktor beckoning, Otabek pointing at the lockers. Yuri just rolls his eyes and opens the next door. He slips inside just as the lounge door opens. 

A middle-aged man in scrubs sighs and grumbles his way to the phone. The phone call is quick, but his intrusion isn’t. He stretches, picks up the carafe in the coffee maker and holds it up to the light with a grimace. He pauses in front of a mirror and picks up the hem of his shirt, prodding at a mole on his belly. It takes every bit of self-control in Viktor’s possession to restrain himself. Finally, he leaves, slumping his way out of the room with another yawn.

It’s a slender second before the door to the locker opens. Yuri steps stiffly out, a murderous look in his eyes. He stays focused, though, trying the rest of the lockers. “Ha!” he exclaims in a whisper and starts pillaging.

A brief minute of fumbling later, and Yuri is back at the window, passing out a bundle of the minty green that is ubiquitous in government institutions. There a strange smell around the fabric: cigarettes and formaldehyde and something sickly sweet and organic. It doesn’t matter. Viktor sorts through the pile and hands a set of the scrubs to Otabek, pulling the larger shirt over his own head.

“Hey! Assholes! Aren’t you forgetting something?”

Otabek hitches himself back up to the window, reaching through to Yuri. It’s a couple more minutes of scuffling and swearing, but Yuri’s back before long. He aims a kick at Viktor’s thigh.

“I am never helping you again! That place smells like Frankenstein’s rectum.”

“Frankenstein’s Monster’s rectum,” Viktor corrects.

“Do you _want_ me to kill you?”

Viktor reaches over to pat Yuri on the head, snatching back his hand in surprise when Yuri actually snaps at it. With his teeth.

”Okay, Mr. Altin. Are we ready?”

Otabek nods, handing his leather jacket and keys to Yuri. “Keep her warm. I think we may need to leave quickly.”

”Oh, ye of little faith! This is a flawless plan.”

Yuri and Otabek roll their eyes in enviable synchronicity.

 

 

Viktor and Otabek walk up to the front door and are immediately confronted with a problem. They need a key. Of course they need a key. People can’t just walk into the morgue and wander around. There’s phone next to the door, the silvery number pad taunting them. Presumably there’s a number to call for access.

Otabek lifts the receiver with a shrug and presses “0.”

Viktor hisses, “What are you doing?” 

”Asking.” He proceeds to ignore Viktor’s frantic attempts to get his attention and speaks calmly to the person on the other end of the line. He doesn’t say much. Mostly grunts. Then, he hangs up and the door buzzes. That’s it. Otabek is a genius. Or maybe he has some sort of mind control ability. “They think we’re dropping off a body,” he comments casually, as he pulls the handle of the door, “So, get ready.”

 _Ready for what?_ Viktor wants to ask, but he just follows Otabek down the hall. The nice thing about government facilities is that rooms are labelled. They follow the signs directing them toward the morgue. There’s no sign of any staff, which is unsettling. At the end of a long hallway, though, they hear the tinny sounds of a radio which only get louder as they turn the corner.

The man from the break room is wiping down a steel stretcher. He looks at them in confusion. “I thought you guys were bringing in a stiff.”

”Yeah. He’s in the hall.” Viktor gestures with his thumb.

”So, uh, bring him in.”

Otabek gives him an unimpressed look from the corner of his eye, but he doesn’t volunteer any assistance.

”Uh, I could use some help. The, er, gurney’s got a bad wheel.”

”And your friend can’t help you?” He’s reaching for a phone, now.

”No, he’s got, uh, kidney stones.” 

Otabek steps over and knocks the phone out of the attendant’s hands. The guy flinches back and trips over his chair.

”Hey, don’t hurt him, okay?”

“Of course not.” Otabek sounds surprised at the suggestion, then with almost surgical precision, gives the guy a whack over the head, catching him as he slumps. Viktor helps Otabek lift him onto a gurney, ignoring the look that says with perfect eloquence, _How are you still alive?_

It isn’t hard to find Yuuri. The drawers are labelled and mostly empty. There’s only one John Doe from the night.

Viktor himself has died more times than he can count. He has killed even more than that. It’s not even as if he’s only killed immortals with their gaudy light shows and orgasmic quickenings. Humans are better at killing each other than they are at just about anything else. In the last hundred years alone, Viktor has been through wars, plagues and famines from one corner of the globe to another. There is no one who knows death better than Viktor.

His hand still shakes as he reaches for the handle and the queasy scent of rot and formalin from his borrowed clothes fills his nose. He flings open the door and Otabek slides out the drawer.

Viktor doesn’t know what he is expecting, but the black body bag with official looking seals is not it. With a glance at him, Otabek breaks the seals and starts to unzip. It is a hard thing to see. Viktor has no right to mourn Yuuri. He is the reason Yuuri is dead. He brought him into his world of endless death and he never even got the chance to care for him before he got him killed. Yuuri is cold and pale, still dressed in everything he was wearing when he escorted Viktor home. He looks very dead.

”Viktor, we don’t have long,” Otabek says, low and urgent.

Viktor shakes himself out of his fit of squeamishness and lifts one of Yuuri’s arms, shuddering at the cold of his skin. He pulls it over his shoulder and lifts Yuuri to a fireman carry. With a nod, Otabek leads them from the room.

They stay close to the walls, peaking carefully around the corners, even though there has been no sign of anyone else. Dawn is just starting to pink the horizon as they burst through the door. It’s a slim but nerve-wracking second before Yuri pulls up. Viktor dumps Yuuri into the sidecar, too rushed to be gentle. Yuuri head lolls back alarmingly, and Viktor tries to sit him up more convincingly. Otabek climbs on the bike behind Yuri, and the fatal flaw in Viktor’s plan becomes suddenly clear. Even with the sidecar, it’s going to be nigh impossible for all four of them to fit on the bike. Before he can come up with an alternatively, a door slams nearby, and Yuri revs the engine. Without thinking, Viktors launches himself into the sidecar, side-saddle across Yuuri’s lap. His head against Otabek’s thigh and his legs dangling over the edge.

Yuri doesn’t wait for him to get comfortable. He tears off as soon as Viktor’s feet leave the ground. When Viktor swears at him, he just drives faster. Viktor doesn’t breath until they come to a full and complete stop in the alley behind the bookshop.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If Weekend at Bernie's squicked you out, then maybe give this one a pass.
> 
> I'm shouting into the void: snarkonice on tumblr.
> 
> "Because I could not stop for Death,  
> He kindly stopped for me."
> 
> From "Because I Could not stop for Death" by Emily Dickinson


	9. Am I the Sky or the Bird?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They're talking! Lookit em go!

Yuuri is lying on a couch and a pale wintery light is streaming in through industrial windows. He is comfortable, tucked all warm and snuggly under an afghan and there is something soft in his arms. This is all very nice, very cozy, and very _wrong_ , because he was just on a freezing roof, watching a sword descend toward Viktor’s neck. He stares at the ceiling. Something is catching the light and casting faint rainbows onto the plaster. It’s a struggle, but he can remember wrenching his arm free from his captor, from Mickey’s grip. He remembers that it hurt, that the joint of his shoulder had burned and made a frightening popping sound. He had shouted, a raw sound ripped from his throat. Then something else had happened, sudden, unexpected. Something had slammed into him from behind, hitting him right between the shoulder blades, and that was the last thing he could remember. Had he fallen, slipped on the ice? Hit his head? He wiggles his shoulder, but there’s no pain. No sign of bruises, no achy head. He feels great, actually, except for a faint, not headache, exactly, it’s more of an twitching, buzzy sensation. Like he has an itch on the inside of his skull.

There’s a soft shifting sound from the end of the couch. He sits up so that he can see better, and chokes on a shriek. Like a crab, he scrambles to the far corner of the couch, clutching himself defensively.

There is a figure perched on the arm of the couch, shrouded menacingly in a sheet, teeth catching the light and gleaming in the shadowed face. “Velcome to eternity,” it croons, “Ve haff liberated you frum your sepulchre to serve a dark master.” It raises two skeletal arms as if to embrace Yuuri. He shrinks back, clutching the soft thing in his arms. He peeks through one squinched eye. It’s a stuffed dog, fluffy brown-eared and plastic eyed. _What._ Why is he holding a Pound Puppy?

”Yuri, please don’t terrorize Yuuri.” Viktor steps into view and sets a cup of coffee in front of him.

The figure flops onto the couch next to him with a groan and props its heels on the coffee table. He’s wearing a pair of yellow tube socks with black stripes at the top. “You know that gonna get _stupid_ confusing, right?” He yanks the sheet from his head, angling a glare of bright green eyes at Yuuri.

”Hm,” Viktor taps his index finger against the middle of his lips. “You are right,” he lifts the finger in triumph. “I know! You can be Yurio!”

”What?” As the kid’s face twists into a scowl and he tosses his blond hair, Yuuri realizes where he’s seen him before: at the bar, demanding service, insisting that he’s old enough to be Leo’s great-grandfather. _Oh._ “Why do I get the stupid nickname? I was here first!”

”How long have you been wearing that name, _Plisetsky_? Don’t you think it’s time for a change?”

”Just because you’re a paranoid asshole who changes his name every half century doesn’t mean you’re right!” Yurio grouses.

Viktor ignores him in favor of sipping from his own mug and giving Yuuri a look that is absolutely dripping with apprehension. “So, Yuuri, I guess you probably want some answers. I can explain -”

Yuuri interrupts. “You, and you, I guess,” he points at Yurio, “and Evgeni, and those Italians, and Jack or Christophe or whatever, are all some sort of weird immortal somethings that can only die if your heads get chopped off.”

Yurio doesn’t quite manage to stifle the impressed look that crosses his face before he gets his scowl back in order. Viktor opens and closes his mouth a couple of times.

Yuuri looks from one to the other, really hoping that someone laughs soon. _Smile, you’re on Candid Camera_ , he thinks. No one smiles, though.

Instead, Viktor swallows visibly and asks, “How long have you known?”

”I, um, figured it out yesterday. My friend thinks you’re vampires, or possibly time travelling robots.” Oh shit. He probably shouldn’t have mentioned Phichit. This is a you-know-too-much we-have-to-kill-you-now scenario if he ever heard of one.

”Wow. The old man is really bad at lying, huh?”

Yuuri looks at Viktor, and there’s a sadness, a wariness that he’s seen before That’s been with Viktor since they met, but there’s also a strange excitement that he can spot in a tiny flashes, lightning quick. ”Oh. Actually, that’s pretty close,” is what he eventually says.

Yuuri is pretty proud of how calm he is. It helps that he doesn’t really believe any of it. This is pretty obviously a dream. Everything that happened last night, too. Maybe even the whole week. That would explain a lot, like the jump in time from last night to now. He sets his feet on the floor. It’s cold. Maybe in real life he kicked off his blanket. Maybe now that he’s realized he’s dreaming he’ll wake up soon. He relinquishes his hold on the stuffed dog, setting it beside him on the couch. Without thinking, he gives it a pat on the head. She’s a good girl, even if she isn’t real. He picks up and his mug and sips his coffee. Someone put sugar in it, and he sets it down with a grimace. “So, now that I know, you have to kill me, right? Or make me one of you?”

There’s a glance that flies between Yurio and Viktor. Yurio stands up. “You’re on your own for this one.” He stands up and tosses the sheet around his shoulders, flicking his hair out of his face with a sniff, before walking into the kitchen and turning on the tiny black and white TV on the counter.

Viktor takes a seat on the couch with an elaborate casualness, and slurps at his coffee. “About that,” he says, looking everywhere but at Yuuri. “How much do you remember about last night?”

“Um.” Yuuri pauses to think. If all the weird stuff that happened last night was a dream, then what was _last night_? If he’s dreaming now, then when did the dream start? He pinches his thigh, hard. Yup. That hurts. Maybe it’s a lucid dream? Those are supposed to be cool. “I, uh, I got to work late because I was at the library. And you were there and you were, like, _wasted_.” He glances at Viktor who doesn’t react, other that his knuckles go a little whiter where he grips his mug. “Uh, sorry. So, I figured I should make sure you got home okay.” That part was all pretty clear in his memory. It was everything that happened next that was so hard to believe.

”You passed out on the couch, and I figured I would just, you know, read for a while, make sure you were okay.” Yuuri shrugs. That’s it. He must have fallen asleep reading.

Yurio snorts from the kitchen. He’s pulling a Pop-tart out of the toaster. It smells pretty good.

”Do you remember the twins? Sara and Mickey?” Viktor’s voice is harsh when he asks and Yuuri wastes a could of seconds wondering how he knows what Yuuri dreamed. But then, under Yuuri’s current working hypothesis, Viktor is part of the dream, so maybe that makes sense. It’s all very confusing.

”Oh, yeah. I don’t know where they came from,” Yuuri says, but when he follows Viktor’s gaze to the window, he notices the missing panes of glass and the cold breath of winter morning that intrudes. “Yeah. They were here.” Yuuri finds that it’s hard to talk about this. Even though it’s a dream, he can feel his breaths getting short and his shoulders rising. Can you even have a panic attack in your sleep? Never mind. That’s a stupid question. Even if it has never happened in the history of ever, Yuuri is pretty sure that if anyone can do it, he can.

”Oh my God,” Yurio moans, banging his head against the countertop. “This is fucking excruciating.” He shoves half a pop-tart into his mouth and continues, still chewing. “I wasn’t there, so i don’t know exactly what sort of idiocy went down, but you four assholes wound up on the roof, and two of you wound up dead.” Yurio takes a generous swig of coffee and wipes his mouth with the back of his forearm. He looks over at Viktor, like he wants a reaction, but Viktor has a frozen, resigned expression. In the pale wintery light, Yuuri can see that he has a scattering of freckles across the bridge of his nose. Yurio scoffs and goes on. “Yeah. Two dead - Mickey Crispino and the inferior Yuuri.” He hops off of his stool, dropping his sheet on the floor. “Whatever. I can’t stand this bullshit. Clean up your mess.” With that he sweeps out of the apartment, leaving a whole glacier of silence between Viktor and Yuuri.

Yuuri picks up his mug with a hand that only trembles a little. It’s still too sweet, but he takes a long sip.

”I’m sorry.” Viktor says.

”For getting me killed?”

”Among other things.”

”What happened? I remember you fighting with, um, Sara? And I remember trying to stop her. And then, well -”

”Mickey. He had a gun.” Viktor looks disgusted by that, which is weird, because of swords and beheadings. He must notice Yuuri’s incredulity because he answers it. “It is, well. It is not how we do things. You will understand soon enough. I tried to go after him but Sara… Sara is very good.” He touches a spot to the left of his sternum with a faint frown. “Before I, well, um. Before that, I could see them start to fight. If Mickey is dead, it isn’t because I killed him.”

”Um, okay?” There’s something that Viktor is avoiding saying out loud, but Yuuri still needs to hear it. “What happened to me? Because I don’t feel like I got shot and I don’t know how I ended up sleeping on your couch.” He grabs the stuffed dog and clutches at it. It’s strangely helpful.

Viktor smiles a little in a strained sort of way. “Ah. You met Makkachin.” Yuuri frowns at him. “Yes. Of course. You got away from Mickey. You wanted to save me. Which, thank you, but don’t do it again. It’s against the rules.” He waves one of those elegant hands, as if dismissing the statement until he is ready for it. “Mickey shot you in the spine I would guess, based on how quickly you went down.”

Yuuri remembers the sudden thudding force of _something_ hitting him right between the shoulder blades.

”He threw you off of the roof. Someone called an ambulance. By the time I was, um, back and got to the hospital, you were already. You know.”

”Dead?” Yuuri remembers coming to the shop. He remembers Viktor telling him that Evgeni was dead. He remembers how he said it then: no stumbling, no qualification. He wonders what’s different now.

”Yes, that. I had a hunch that you might not stay that way for too long, so some friends helped to bring you home.” He says this with a shrug, as if it was that simple. “On a motorcycle,” he adds with a small ironic smile. 

An insistent buzzing interrupts his story. Viktor swears under his breath. Yuuri doesn’t know what language it is, but he knows a naughty word when he hears one. “Come downstairs with me?” Viktor stands, extending his hand in invitation. “Um, here,” he hands Yuuri a pair of sunglasses from the table. “Try to look hungover.”

”What?” He shoves the glasses on and takes the proffered hand. “Why?” He follows Viktor down the stairs.

”We had an encounter with an officer of the law. He’s under the impression that you had overindulged and weren’t, you know.”

”Dead.” He can see Viktor’s head jerk up when he says it. Yuuri just figures that if he repeats it enough, he’ll either believe it or wake up. If you die in a dream, aren’t you supposed to _really_ die, or wake up, or something?

”Yes. That.” He unlocks the door with a sigh. “Back so soon, Officer Feltzman?”

The officer has a comically weathered face. It reminds Yuuri of a raisin. He has the sort of face that looks disgruntled most of the time, but can be easily stoked into apoplexy. He sips from a paper cup of coffee as he shoves past Viktor.

”Yes, please. Do come in,” Viktor closes the door behind him.

Feltzman spots Yuuri and bulls over to him, standing toe to toe and looking closely at Yuuri. “Feeling better, I see.” 

”I - I guess so. Am I in trouble?”

“I don’t know. Are you?”

“I, um, Vitya?”

“Don’t look at him. I’m asking the questions.”

“But I don’t know what the question is?”

He grumbles. “Name?”

“Yuuri.”

“Full name.”

“Yuuri Katsuki.”

“Age?”

“Twenty-seven.”

Feltzman huffs something that sounds like, “yeah, right.” Yuuri ignores this. His round cheeks make him look much younger than he is. “Profession?” He asks with a hint of a leer that makes Viktor stand up straighter.

“Student. Oh, and bartender.” He reaches for his back pocket. “I have my lic-”

Viktor interrupts with a hand on his arm. “You don’t to show him that.” He fixes Feltzman with a smile, broad and fake and more than a little threatening. “He is only here because he thinks that I am some sort of predator. Now that he knows that you are here because you wish to be, he has no reason to stay. Isn’t that right?”

“Young man, what is the nature of your relationship with Mr. Nikiforov?”

“You have no right to -”

“He’s my lover.” Yuuri interrupts. Viktor’s mouth snaps shut at the same time that Feltzman’s drops. He wraps his arm around Viktor’s waist and leans into him. Then he fills his voice with as much syrupy sweetness as he can. “Isn’t that right, Vitenka?” Viktor makes a choking sound beside him, and Officer Feltzman rolls his eyes.

“You two wouldn’t happen to know anything about a shooting last night, would you?” 

Yuuri lets his eyes widen innocently before remembering that he’s wearing sunglasses. “Oh my word,” he gasps, channelling his inner Phichit. “How awful.” He takes off his glasses and gazes up at Viktor who looks mildly stunned. “I’m afraid we were very Busy,” Yuuri purrs up at Viktor. He turns back to the cop, who is looking away uncomfortably. “ _Very Busy_ , all night long.” He slides the sunglasses back on. “Did you have any more questions? Because I’d be happy to provide details,” the last sentence comes out on a purr.

Feltzman’s face has turned an alarming shade of red. He scribbles something in a notepad and shoves it in his pocket with a growl. He manages to say, “have a nice day,” in a tone that means,”I’ll be watching you.”

Viktor locks the door behind him. “What just happened?”

Yuuri shrugs. “We defeated the forces of fascism by making them slightly uncomfortable?”

”Please, use this power responsibly. You’re taking this very well.”

”I’m still pretty sure I’m dreaming. If I haven’t woken up in a couple of hours, please excuse me while I have a truly bodacious panic attack.” Yuuri pointedly looks aways from the bookshelves. Because if he can read, he will have to accept that there is the slightest chance that all of this is real.

”That sounds like a reasonable approach,” Viktor says. “Can we finish talking before you wake up, though?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Y'all, it is such a relief to have Yuuri back.
> 
> I'm shouting into the void: snarkonice on tumblr.
> 
> Poems about Death is still the theme.
> 
> The quill from a buzzard  
> The blood writes the word  
> I want to know am I the sky or a bird?  
> 'Cause hell is boiling over  
> And heaven is full  
> We're chained to the world  
> And we all gotta pull  
> And we're all gonna be, yeah, yeah  
> I said we're all going to be just dirt in the ground.
> 
> From "Dirt in the Ground" by Tom Waits


	10. I guess I will live on

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Viktor and Yuuri have an overdue chat and Yuuri makes it to class on time. 
> 
> Sorry about the slow update. I've got a few too many irons in the fire right now. Updates will be a bit more sporadic, but I wanted to at least wrap up this very exposition-heavy chapter.

Back in the apartment, Viktor offers more coffee. Yuuri accepts. “So, you liberated my corpse and somehow brought me here on a motorcycle. What then?”

”There’s not much more to tell. I waited for you to wake up, drank too much coffee. Sorry about your clothes, by the way. I put them through the wash, but I don’t think you’ll want them back.”

“Oh. Thanks.”

“How did you know? About me?”

“Not until yesterday. A friend found something in the paper. He had this crazy theory about Evgeni being a vampire.” It doesn’t seem so crazy now. The possibility that this is not a dream is growing with every passing second. Every sip of coffee, every smell, every physical sensation, every object in the room that stays what and where it is. Yuuri looks at Viktor closely, but he stays Viktor, not morphing into Alfred Hitchcock or President Reagan or that creepy cheerleading mouse from ShowBiz Pizza. “At first I thought maybe that made you a vampire hunter, like Van Helsing or something.”

“Please. Van Helsing was an idiot. I’d much rather be Mina.”

Yuuri finds himself smiling at that, even though he shouldn’t find anything amusing right now. “Then last night happened. You said something, then with the Twins…” He stands up. It’s time. He can’t put it off anymore. During high school he had tried to train himself to have lucid dreams. He had kept dream journals and everything. What could he say? He’d been a weird kid.

The only thing he had found to be a consistent dream marker was his inability to read in dreams. There’s a magazine on the counter, a copy of Guitar World. It’s the January issue. The cover image is a young man who is more hair than human. His name is unpronounceable and Yuuri is immediately relieved. Clearly, this is a dream. He flips through it, past an amp buyer’s guide, past a column called the Whammy Bar, past ads featuring spandexed young men pouting and humping their instruments. He learns that “When you get right down to it, the Floyd Rose Sustainer is all you really need, and “Hamer builds instruments of uncompromising quality,” and that “the Bottom Line is Sound.” When he learns that Yngwie Malmsteen is a real Scandinavian guitarist, who is apparently not a god, he has to give up.

Viktor has been watching him, the whole time, with a faintly bemused expression. “I didn’t know you played.”

“I don’t. Yurio left it. Do you?” Yuuri sets the magazine aside and thumps his head on the counter. Yep. It hurts. “I’m not dreaming, am I?”

“No.”

“What am I?”

“You’re like me. An immortal.”

“But I don’t know what that means.” He holds up a hand. “I know what the words mean. Just what does it mean, in practice.”

“No one really knows.” Viktor’s forehead wrinkles a bit when he thinks. “And I don’t know if that’s really the right word. We’re just harder to kill.”

“Let me guess. Beheading?”

“Correct.”

“Ugh. How do I feel about garlic?”

“I don’t know. How do you feel about garlic?”

“I’m a fan.”

“I don’t see why that would change.”

“What will change?”

“That depends on you.”

Yuuri grimaces. He dislikes decisions at the best of times. “Am I sworn to secrecy? Do I have to kill everyone who finds out about me? Do I have to give up my life to study the blade? I’m almost done with my doctorate!” Ah yes, there it is, the familiar feeling of breathlessness and the slight blackening around the edges of his vision. “Oh god, I’m supposed to go home for Christmas, I promised I would paint the guest rooms.” He digs his fingers into the flesh above his knees. Wait. Can Immortals even have panic attacks? That can’t be right. So he asks, “what about other things? Can I still get sick? Just how different am I?” Something surprising, glorious, strikes him. “Can I eat dairy now?”

“What? You don’t eat dairy?” Viltor shakes his head, “how do you live?” he dismisses the thought. “Let me think, that was a lot of questions, Yuuri!” He leans back against the couch, and Yuuri must be calmer because he can’t stop his eyes from tracing the slope from his shoulders down to his belly. His ears get warm as Viktor slouches further and props his ankles on the coffee table. “You aren’t sworn to secrecy. There is no secret Immortal council that will punish you for telling people. But a measure of discretion is, well, wise. I’m sure you can imagine that becoming known to the authorities would produce unpleasant consequences for all of us. As far as people you love, that is your choice, but I still recommend caution. People don’t always take it well.”

“I can imagine.”

“You can finish your doctorate. You can paint the guest room. As to your question about illness, you can still get sick, drunk, hungover, but you will find that you recover faster. Non-fatal wounds will heal faster. We don’t regrow limbs or anything, but anything shy of that will heal. You can still die, but as long as your head stays attached to your body, you will come back. You’re stuck with the scars you have, but you won’t acquire more. I don’t know about the dairy. You should experiment. In the interest of science.” Viktor stops, like he realizes how long he’s been talking. Or maybe it’s something else, because he looks troubled. “As for the rest,” he gives Yuuri a look that he’s forced to describe as ominous.

“The blade?”

Viktor nods. “I’m sure you’ve noticed that there are certain people who would be very pleased to claim my head. I may not be the safest person to associate with.”

“The thought had crossed my mind. You did get me killed once already.” It’s not much of a joke, and he regrets it as soon as he sees the expression on Viktor’s face. Yuuri wonders if he should be angrier about it. He’ll get around to it once the shock wears off.

“Yes. I did.” Viktor can’t seem to make himself meet Yuuri’s eyes. Yuuri retaliates by looking at the rug. “I don’t think there’s a way for me to make it up to you, but, if you wanted, I could teach you some things.” Yuuri is still pointedly not looking at him, but he can hear the couch creak as Viktor shifts in his seat. “I am so sorry.”

When he hears the crack in Viktor’s voice, he has to look up. As soon as he does, Viktor scrubs at his eyes. “Wow.” A muscle in Viktor’s jaw flexes as Yuuri scoots closer to him. He reaches out and brushes the silvery bangs away from Viktor’s face. “I didn’t expect you to cry.”

“Oh. yes. That’s something that doesn’t change.”

“That wasn’t what I meant.” Viktor catches his wrist as Yuuri’s fingers trail down his cheek. “Be my, uh, coach, Viktor!”

“Coach?” Viktor laughs and a smile blooms across his face. “I’ll do my best.”

A long pause follows this promise, Yuuri’s hand lingering on Viktor cheek as his gaze lingers on the bright blue of Viktor’s eyes. Yuuri feels like he could stay here forever. Literally, maybe. Except that he kind of has to pee. A cuckoo clock chimes, making him jump.

 _Oh Shit._ “Oh shit!” He leaps to his feet, “Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit.” He has to be in the lab in an hour.

Viktor looks genuinely frightened. “Yuuri! It’s okay, it will be fine, I promise! I will keep you safe!”

”Not from Professor Baranovskaya you won’t!” He’s on his feet, frantically looking around for his things.

”Wait, Yuuri -”

“I can’t, Viktor, you don’t understand!”

Viktor looks inappropriately amused as he points. Yuuri looks down at himself. He is wearing a pair of hot pink sweatpants and a t-shirt that says “Let the Russians play with themselves!” Zhenya had always had a questionable sense of humor.

Yuuri gapes at him. “Did - did you undress me?”

“I sort of had to. You smelled like a morgue.” He pauses as if it’s just occurred to him that this might have been weird. “Yurio helped,” he offers, as if that will set his mind at ease. It doesn’t.

“Where are my clothes?”

Viktor makes a face, “They aren’t fit to be worn.”

“Viktor, where are my clothes?” Yuuri hears his own voice crack, and winces.

Viktor folds his arms petulantly and points at a black plastic bag. “You don’t want to -” Yuuri ignores him and tears it open, pulling out his jeans and shirt. He tries to shake out the pants but they are stiff, caked with something dark. He grabs the shirt and that’s when his knees give out. It’s been wadded up and has dried that way, stiff and brownish. When he tries to flatten it, flecks of rusty powder come off on his hands. At the center of the wad of fabric it’s still damp. His hands come away red and his nose is filled with a smell that is somewhere between rotten meat and the sensation of holding a penny in your mouth. He thinks he’s going to throw up.

There’s a sigh from behind him and Viktor says, “I told you so.”

“I guess you did.”

 

 

Another glance at the clock and the promise of a ride convinces Yuuri to calm down. Viktor is already dialing as he gestures Yuuri toward the bathroom. Still dazed, Yuuri goes. 

It’s a small bathroom, clearly an afterthought in the converted industrial space, and it is _full_. The sink is crowded with products: mousse, moisturizers, lotions, several types of soap. He peeks into the shower and notices the same thing: it’s like the hair care aisle at Eckerd’s threw up all over the bathroom. He picks up one bottle, then another. They are all new. Full. Some haven’t even been opened. Yuuri isn’t sure why a man who claims to be an un-aging immortal needs three types of anti-wrinkle cream, but he, too, is weak to the shine of nail polish and the glimmer of eye shadow, so perhaps he shouldn’t judge.

He undresses and spends more time than he can spare staring into the full length mirror on the back of the door. He looks the same, not at all like someone who was shot and thrown off a roof. He turns and tries to look at his own back, but there’s no sign of the wound that had supposedly killed him. He looks down and prods his belly. Still squishy. His appendectomy scar is still there. There has to be something, some way that he can test the story that Viktor has told him. Something short of doing himself a fatal-but-not-beheading injury. He catches himself fidgeting, flexing his fingers. It takes him a moment to realize what’s wrong. His hands are fine. 

Nothing wrong with them, at all. That’s wrong. He makes a fist with his left hand and watches the skin stretch taut across his knuckles. THat reveals the white line of an old scar. He had cut himself slicing tomatoes during a brief and ill-fated career in food-service. There’s another, between the first and second knuckle of his middle finger. One of Phichit’s hamsters had taken a chomp at him a few months ago. He still has his scars. He still has ink under his fingernails. So where is the gouge in the middle of his left palm? The one from when the burin had caught on an imperfection in the block he’d been cutting and skipped across the wood to spear his palm. He’d bled all over his freshly torn paper. He runs a finger over the spot. Nothing. Just unmarked skin. Maybe a little dry. He should try one of Viktor’s lotions. He probably has one that smells nice.

He doesn’t have time to think about this now, though. Yuuri proudly lists procrastination among his skills. Phichit describes him as “deadline motivated” because he’s kind and good at marketing. Yuuri can definitely think about this later. So he steps into the hot shower where he virtuously (and stubbornly) skips all of the luxurious new products in favor of a half empty bottle of Pert Plus and a broken bar of yellow soap.

He finishes up, and wipes the steam from his glasses with a towel that is fluffier than it has any right to be. He wraps the towel around his waist, bundles up the borrowed clothes and goes to see what Viktor has come up with.

The sound of rummaging leads him to the bedroom, where Viktor stands, back to the room, shoving hangers back and forth, tossing clothes onto the bed. Yuuri wonders if Viktor has a clear understanding of the concept of “going to class.” He’s fairly sure that he sees the satin stripe of tuxedo pants in the pile. 

He clears his throat. “Where should I put these?” Viktor turns, holding up a green button-down. He looks up at Yuuri and makes a strange sound in his throat.

”Ah. Yes. Anywhere, please. I’ll take care of them.” Viktor watches with a peculiar intensity as he sets the pile of clothes on the bed. “So, I found some things that might fit.” Viktor gestures at the pile on the bed. He’s still looking at Yuuri, gaze drawn to his center.

Yuuri wraps his arms around his waist. “Thanks,” he says, then looks at the door. “Um, do you mind?”

”Right! Okay!” Viktor startles a bit, before lifting his head and scuttling out the door.

Yuuri supposes that a bit of eccentricity is to be expected. He starts to paw through the pile of clothes that Viktor has pulled out. He has actually done a passable job of finding things that won’t look out of place. Viktor had even set out undergarments and socks, and Yuuri spends several precious seconds wondering whether it’s weirder to wear someone else’s underwear or to wear someone else’s pants _without_ underwear. Finally he shrugs and pulls on the briefs. Yuuri decides on some jeans and a cardigan that he can remember Zhenya wearing. Yuuri had called him Mr. Rogers that day, then spent a half hour explaining who that was. The pants are a little big, but a belt and a roll of the cuffs solves that problem. Yuuri is as ready as he’ll ever be to face the day.

Yuuri pads cautiously out of the bedroom in the gloriously cozy wool socks. Russians apparently have excellent taste in socks. “Wow,” Viktor breathes, “you look amazing.”

Yuuri wrinkles his nose in disbelief. “Uh, yeah. Sure.” He shrugs into his coat when Viktor hands it to him, shoving his hands into his pockets. Thank god, that’s where he left his wallet and, yes, there are his keys. He sighs in relief. “Look, Viktor, the last couple of days, it’s been, well, a lot.” He hesitates, because Viktor’s face has gone cautiously, impressively blank. He reaches forward and takes Viktor’s hand in his. He stiffens for a moment, but soon enough, Yuuri can feel him relax. He gives Viktor’s hand an encouraging squeeze. “I think I like you, but I need a little time to take all this in. And to grade papers. And to survive the last week of the semester.” His lips stretch into a wry smile, and Yuuri still doesn’t understand how Viktor gets his eyes to shift between the deep blue of a calving iceberg and the warm comfort of a sunny sky. He thinks it might be magic. “But, I want to, i don’t know, get to know you better.” This is probably a bad idea. “My parents, they own a bed and breakfast, up by Niagara. I’ll be up there most of the break.”

“Yes. You have to paint the guest room.”

“Rooms. Yeah. So, like, give me a couple of weeks, but, then, if you wanted to, you come stay for a couple of days.”

“Are you sure?”

“No, that’s why I need a couple of weeks.” Yuuri wants it to sound teasing, but Viktor looks away. “Hey.” He touches Viktor’s sharp chin. “I’m sure I want to spend time with you. And I’m not taking back what I said about teaching me, I just -”

“I understand, Yuuri.” Viktor interrupts, and it looks like he does even if he doesn’t really look happy about it. “Well, maybe I don’t understand, because I don’t remember…” and that is something Yuuri can’t even _think_ about right now, “but I can wait until you’re ready.” He smiles a little bit sharply. “I’m not getting any older.”

“I’ll be in touch, okay?” Yuuri has to say this because Viktor looks so lost. It reminds him a little of the way he’d looked last night. He tugs on Viktor’s hand and takes a step into Viktor’s space. He tilts his face up and lets his nose scrape against the faint stubble on Viktor’s jaw. He does smell nice; maybe those products are worth it after all. Yuuri stops at the little hollow behind Viktor’s earlobe, pressing a kiss against the corner of his jaw before taking the velvety earlobe between his lips. Viktor turns toward him then, cobra-fast, and Yuuri is in his arms, Viktor’s lips on Yuuri’s lips, on his cheeks, on his eyelids, sucking kisses all down his neck. 

“Oy! Viktor! Do you want us to bring the dead piggy to school or not?” The shout from the alley is accompanied by the sound of, is that a motorcycle? Viktor stops, huffing a laugh against Yuuri’s neck.

“Sorry, Yurio!” Viktor shouts, aimed vaguely at the broken window.

“That’s not my name!”

“I’d better go,” Yuuri disentangles himself from Viktor’s arms and tries to be subtle about rearranging his pants.

“Right.” Viktor clears his throat. “You might as well take the fire escape. Everyone else does these days.” He materializes Yuuri’s boots from somewhere mysterious and holds the window as Yuuri climbs through.

Yuuri drops the few feet from the bottom of the ladder to the ground where Yurio is standing next to a motorcycle with a sidecar. Yurio takes one look at Yuuri’s flushed face and lips that feel kiss-swollen and stubble-burnt. “Gross,” he pronounces as he climbs on behind the driver.

“Good to see you alive,” comments the driver as he shifts the bike into gear.

“Thanks,” says Yuuri.

“Otabek Altin, I didn’t get to introduce myself before.”

“Yuuri Katsuki. Did you?”

“Yeah, he helped us steal your loser body, Pig.”

“Oh. Um, thank you.”

“No problem.” The engine is too loud for any further conversation and Otabek drives like a maniac, weaving in and out of traffic. Yuuri holds on for dear life (or whatever) and by the time they get there his right leg is sore from pressing an imaginary brake pedal. His entire face is numb from the winter wind but he manages to dash into the lab before Professor Baranovskaya has pulled on her white cotton gloves and started her demonstration. She gives him a look, but doesn’t say anything as he assists in the delicate process of removing the water damaged binding. 

The rest of the lab goes smoothly enough. The students are advanced enough to ask good questions about mold remediation and it keeps Yuuri’s focus from wandering too far. At least, until he picks up a razor blade to separate the embossed leather of the cover from the sodden book-board. If he’s careful enough, he should be able to salvage the gilded title at the very least. His attention wanders for a second, though, and the blade slips, slicing open the tip of his thumb. He has just enough time to register the cut and the cold bite of pain when his skin knits back together with a blue spark. His yelp of surprise makes everyone in the lab turn to look at him.

“Sorry! Uh, static!” he ad libs, hoping no one was looking too closely. He spends the rest of the class in a daze. _It’s all real._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> From Life is Fine by Langston Hughes
> 
> "So since I’m still here livin’,  
> I guess I will live on.  
> I could’ve died for love—  
> But for livin’ I was born
> 
> Though you may hear me holler,  
> And you may see me cry—  
> I’ll be dogged, sweet baby,  
> If you gonna see me die."
> 
> Thanks to shadesofscotia for inspiring this chapter title.


	11. You'll never find my name

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Viktor has a pleasant dinner conversation.
> 
>  
> 
> Yes, hello, I'm back. I have been making some pictures for this fic, which i will add as soon as I get some decent scans/figure out how to include images. 
> 
> see end notes for some content heads-ups.

 

Viktor lives the next week in a haze of worry and anticipation. Yuuri asked for time. Viktor will give him time. He has plenty of it, after all. But. He worries. He worries about a lot of things. Worries that What’s-His-Name-Leroy’s people will come after Yuuri, alone and unprepared, for revenge, maybe, or for the power his Quickening could bring. He worries that they will come for him, will catch him, will beat him this time. It’s strange that only a couple of weeks ago Viktor would have welcomed that sort of uncertainty. He suddenly cares whether or not he wins.

The cop, Sergeant - Captain? Detective? - Feltzman is still hovering around, watching Viktor, as if expecting him to transport another corpse. He has taken to visiting Viktor’s diner, the one with the salisbury steaks. He is another thing to worry about.

Mostly, he worries selfishly. Why hasn’t he heard from Yuuri? Time, yes, he promised time, but Yuuri promised “in touch.” Has he realized what Viktor has done to him? Surely by now he understands that this, all of it, is Viktor’s fault? That he should have stayed away, that he shouldn’t have been caught unprepared like that, that he knew that this James Tiberius Leroy was dangerous and still did nothing? There was a kiss, one that Viktor had found very satisfying, but Yuuri? Yuuri had been dead only two hours before that. Viktor is prone to wishful thinking, but even he has to acknowledge that choices made within hours of learning that you were dead, aren’t anymore, and might actually never die are probably not the most immutable decisions.

It is perhaps a Friday, maybe a Saturday. Viktor has spent a long and frustrating day trying to train Yurio in grappling techniques. Yurio is a willing but argumentative student and by the end of the day Viktor is cursing the fact that a day spent grinding one’s teeth produces a headache regardless of life-span. Yurio finally leaves in a swirl of blond hair and profanity and Viktor, too exhausted to cook, shrugs on his coat and walks the three dark blocks to the diner. It will be a long night. Maybe the longest.

Inside, the cold fluorescent buzz makes it feel like the fluid inside his eyeballs is jiggling but he still manages a jaunty wave at Feltzman, who is sitting at the counter pulling a face at his cup of coffee. His scowl deepens and his face turns an alarming color. Is it puce, perhaps? Viktor decides that it is puce. He pulls a newspaper from the rack and brings it to a booth. The little gold flecks in the formica table-top sparkle and everything feels very bright. It occurs to him that he would like a drink. That always has a nice way of turning down the brightness of the world. Of course, the only place he wants to have a drink is at Yuuri’s bar and he has promised Yuuri _time_. He has plenty of it, after all.

Viktor pages through the menu and considers trying something new. Maybe he should order the Swedish meatballs. His headache is worsening, growing into the itchy buzz that warns him to pay attention, to keep a hand on his sword. The door jingles open and Sara Crispino comes in. She pulls off her hat, a knitted beret the color of wine, and shakes out her dark hair. The lights burnish it to a bright bronze and her violet eyes dance like laughter when she turns toward him.

With a gesture, he offers the seat across from him. She floats over and stands next to the table for a moment, as if waiting for something. Viktor wonders if he is meant to take her coat. He does not. Sara shrugs minutely and lets the coat fall to her elbows. It’s made of a soft dove-colored wool and Viktor wants to bury his cold fingers in it. If he is lusting after a coat this was, then perhaps he should get himself a new one after all. He fingers the hilt of his sword in its hidden pocket.

“Miss Crispino,” his greets, sipping his coffee.

“Mr., what was it? Nikiforov? Is that what you’re calling yourself?”

“For the time being.”

“Don’t you get tired of it? This constant performance of yours?”

“Do you?”

Sara taps her fingers on the laminated menu. “I don’t perform. I’ve never been anyone but Sara Crispino. You on the other hand, don’t even know your name.”

She has a point, Viktor thinks as he watches her order a veggie lover’s omelette and a glass of grapefruit juice, smiling at the waitress with red, red lips. Viktor orders the salisbury steak, but this time he gets the green beans instead of the broccoli. Perhaps he is capable of change. What would it be like to stop moving for a while? To find a safe place, a bit of holy ground, maybe, and let himself relax and remember. He shakes his head a bit at his own foolishness. He is already a living legend among his kind, the most sought after head in the world. They would not allow him to retire, especially not now that he has made the mistake of caring about things again. Yuuri may not want him anymore, but he will need him. There are things he will need to know if he is to survive.

“So, Miss Crispino, what brings you to this fine establishment?” He looks past her to Feltsman, who is staring metaphorical daggers at him. He blows him a kiss. Sara turns to look over her shoulder. Feltzman is not subtle in his observation. She gives him a wave with the tips of her fingers. With a grunt, Feltzman hides his face behind a newspaper.

“Friend of yours?” She inquires. “And ‘Sara’ is fine, but if you insist on being formal, I prefer ‘Ms.’”

“Sara, then. He’s a representative of the local gendarme. I’m afraid I have attracted their notice.”

“Oh dear. I suppose I am partially to blame for that.”

“Oh?”

“Yes. I should have stayed to finish the task, but it seemed unsporting to kill you when you were already dead.”

“We lead a strange life, don’t we?”

The waitress delivers their beverages, and Sara sips her pink juice through a straw, sighing happily. “Oh, it’s fresh! I was expecting the canned variety.”

Viktor holds his coffee close to his nose, not drinking, just letting the steam warm his face. “So, are you apologizing for _not_ beheading me?”

“Oh, no. I do regret it, though.”

“Well, you had other things on your mind.”

“You don’t think very highly of me, do you?”

“I don’t know you well enough to have an opinion,” he lies.

“I am sorry, though, for what happened to your friend,” and Viktor believes her. Her mask of charm slips for a moment. “He seemed like a kind young man, and brave, in his way. I had no intention of permanently harming him.”

Fortunately, Yuuri seems to be doing just fine, even if he is, tragically, not speaking to Viktor. None of this is information that he feels inclined to share. “Your kind words mean a lot to me in this time of sadness,” he recites.

Sara giggles a bit at his flat tone. “I had heard that you were cold, but you surprise me.”

“You have the advantage, then. I can’t pretend that I know as much about you.” He pauses at the waitress sets down their food. VIktor smiles blandly until she is too far away to hear them, then continues as he slices into his meat. “For example, he didn’t precisely make a winning impression on me, but I was quite surprised to learn that you killed your brother. What was his name?”

“Poor Michele,” she says softly. Viktor does not miss the way she blinks quickly and sips her juice. “I didn’t think you were able to see that. I had planned to blame you.”

“I don’t mind if you do. It adds to the legend, after all.”

“That’s a relief. I’ve already told JJ. Oh yes, and Emil. He’ll want to speak with you soon, I imagine.”

“I’ll look forward to it.”

“You asked if I was tired.” Viktor supposes he had, but he doesn’t find himself caring much about the answer. “I am tired. Tired of playing the game. You know, these mortals. They are always _dying_ , and always too soon.” Her hands are shaking slightly and she sets down her fork without taking a bite. “I don’t want to waste any more of her time.” Sara says this softly, decisively, like she’s forgotten he’s there.

“I understand.”

“I suppose you do. Again, I am sorry about your Yuuri. I told Mickey - he wasn’t supposed to harm him. And with a gun, even. ‘A mortal weapon for a mortal.’ He’s one of those, you know, one who thinks that we are better than they are, just because we’re harder to kill.” Viktor doesn’t interrupt. “I believed him, for a while. Do you know our story?” VIktor shakes his head. He only knows what Yurio told him, and Sara seems like she needs to tell someone this. He isn’t sure when his anger became sympathy. “We were born in Napoli, at the height of the Renaissance. We went all the way to Florence so that Filippino Lippi could paint an altarpiece for the family chapel. We have been entertained by the Medici.”

“How nice for you,” he replies indulgently, before shoving a bite of mashed potatoes in his mouth.

She smiles. “They were dirty old men, all of them. But, of course, you wouldn’t be impressed. I’m accustomed to being the oldest person in the room. I was born before Mickey, you see.” Viktor is impressed by her memory. Some immortals are like that, clinging to every memory, bringing their stories with them through the years. Viktor has let everything pass away with the time, not even clinging to his name. “If you’ll recall, there was always a war of some sort. Popes, kings, idiots. My brother was killed by the French, I think it was. He declined to stay dead, and when he came home, he realized that I was like him. Poor Mickey has always been quite attached to me, so you can imagine what he did next. I think I have been angry with him for quite some time. And with myself. I have let him make far too many choices on my behalf.” She looks at Viktor somewhat sharply. “I made a choice that night. I don’t hate my brother, but I chose freedom. You have a choice, too.”

“Who is she?”

“I believe I’ll keep some mysteries for myself,” Sara says with a smile that makes the corners of her eyes crinkle. She looks at the window next to their table. Their reflections are all Viktor can see, but Sara’s voice goes soft and sweet anyway. “You don’t seem like the vengeful type, though. I’ll tell you this: she laughs all the time, has eyes the color of, oh, jade, or something similarly trite. She can change a tire in twelve and a half minutes.” Sara looks down at her plate and pushes it forward with a sigh. “I guess I’m not very hungry after all.” She takes another sip of her juice and stands. “So, that’s it, then. I am done, out of the game. I have no right to ask -”

“I won’t look for you. Or her.”

“Thank you.”

“You’re making the right choice,” he says, surprising himself. “It’s the choice I would have made, if I could have.” Now, instead of a lover, he has a student, and maybe not even that. Sara pauses, her wallet in hand.

“You still could, you know. Quit the game, I mean.”

“Not yet,” he says. Not until Yuuri is trained, until he can defend himself, until he doesn’t need Viktor, he thinks. “Not until Leroy Jenkins is dead,” he says, because that’s also true.

“Jean-Jacques Le Roi.”

“That’s right.”

“I wish you the best, then,” she says. “Some advice, if I may? Mr. Le Roi is both dangerous and determined. If he wants to destroy you, he will do so, and he won’t stop with the tools of _our_ world. If you wish to meet him on your own terms, which I suggest, you may want to move quickly.” She directs her eyes toward Feltzman at the counter. “You may be surprised at the reach of his influence.”

“What will you do? He doesn’t sound like the sort who will take kindly to desertion.” “Ah, no. His first death was during that awful war - the one with the trenches. I don’t suppose you’ve heard what happened to those deserters? I think Mr. Le Roi learned some rather unfortunate lessons.” She looks resolute. “I mean to make a complete change, and I don’t intend to tell you my plans. I’m sure you understand.” She sets some bills, too much for her small meal, on the table, and says, “I hope that you can find something worth changing for, Viktor.” Then she is gone.

Viktor hopes he already has.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sara talks about her background. She's pretty oblique about it, but Mickey is even more unpleasant and controlling than he is in the show.
> 
> also, despite the way this fic is shaking out, I really do love JJ. I am also taking suggestions for more ways for Viktor to get JJ's name wrong.
> 
> This chapter's title from "No Name" by Sarah Shook. I love Sarah and highly recommend her if you like bleak and boozy country music.
> 
> "Many moons ago before the west was won  
> And the law was just the youngest man with the fastest gun  
> I was the tyrant of the desert, the sultan of the plains  
> With a golden palomino for the golden suzerain 
> 
> I didn’t ride with Shotgun Betty, didn’t ride with Jesse James  
> I didn’t ride with wanted outlaws, didn’t ride with outlaw gangs  
> You’ll never find my name though you may look  
> For my name is only found in the Devil’s book."
> 
> also, i'm on tumblr as snarkonice, come yell at me there!


	12. And Find a Peaceful Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Meet the Katsukis.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I may have done some minor retconning. If you don't want to go back and hunt for it, Prof Okukawa is now Prof Baranovskaya. I needed Minako for something else.
> 
> (See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

It’s funny how returning home after an absence always feels familiar and foreign all at once. Even if it’s only been half a year, small changes accumulate into a solid concretion of disorientation. Was that building always blue? What used to be in that lot? Oh, that restaurant closed? He can only imagine what it would feel like if he’d been gone for longer. A year? Five? A hundred? The thought makes him dizzy. The bones of a place remain the same, though. Niagara on the Lake is, even at the height of the tourist season, best described as a sleepy tourist town. During winter, the town may as well be hibernating.

Utopia Bath, Bed, and Breakfast is a wonderland of twinkling lights and evergreen boughs, welcoming him in from the cold. They usually get a few visitors around the New Year, but right around Christmas, they aren’t too swamped with overnight guests. Their dining is open to the public on Fridays and weekends, and the “Authentic Japanese Onsen Experience” draws day-trippers from Buffalo and Toronto, so it’s hard to say how busy they’ll be on any given day.

As he pauses in the entryway to toe off his shoes, he hears a skittering of claws on the wood floors. Vicchan is always the first to great him, dancing in her excitement, her toenails click-clicking on the floor, butt wiggling so much he can hardly pick her up.

“Yuuri? Is that you?”

“Yeah. Hey guys. Sorry it’s been so long.” He buries his face in Vicchan’s fur as she squirms and tries to lick his nose. His mother emerges from the kitchen, trailing the familiar smells and wiping her hands on her apron. She seems like she’s somehow gotten shorter since he was last here.

“Don’t be silly, love. We know you’ve got plenty to keep you busy.” She reaches around Vicchan to give him a hug, and the tiny dog vibrates with delight. “Now, can we help you with your things?”

“No, mom, I’ll get them after dinner.”

“No way! I’ll get ‘em,” calls his father from the office.

“No, it’s fine, I already tok my shoes off -” but he knows it’s a losing battle, and sure enough, within thirty seconds Yuuri and his parents have all trooped out to his Mazda GLC and are unnecessarily helping him carry his dufflebag, backpack, and the bag of dirty laundry that somehow always makes the trip home with him. By the time they make it back to the front door, Mari has emerged from some corner or another and is leaning against the gingerbread porch column and lit a cigarette. Her hair is growing out from the short bleached perm she was sporting last time he saw her, and even with the two-toned effect, it suits her. She has added at least three new piercings and the overall effect is very punk don’t fuck with me and less Madonna wannabe.

“Hey, squirt.”

“Hey, jerk,” he gives her a one armed hug. All of his warm and fuzzy feeling fly out of his mind when she abruptly turns her head and licks his earlobe. He screeches and yanks his head back, slapping at her shoulders. Before long it has devolved into the least dignified slap-fight that Yuuri has ever participated in, and he has been called both a “buttmunch” and a “wasteoid,” and received a purple nurple. By the time he managed to retaliate with a truly cutting, “I know you are but what am I?” and a noogie, their parents and Vicchan had long since disappeared inside and left them to their juvenile reunion.

“Hey, can I have one of those?” Yuuri gestures at Mari’s hands as she shakes out another cigarette. The first had been knocked into a snowdrift.

Mari raises an eyebrow. “You don’t smoke.”

“You don’t know everything about me.” What would it be like to tell someone? Mari? Phichit? Would anyone believe him? Mari shrugs and tosses him the beat up packet. He fumbles it onto the porch.

“Good job.”

“Shut up.” He guesses that if he hasn’t outgrown his klutziness it will never happen now. “Here,” He passes the packet back, and as she put it away then slaps her pockets for a lighter. “I made you a thing.”

“It’s not Christmas yet, Yuuri.”

“I know. I’m gonna give mom and dad something tonight, too.”

“Double presents. Hell yeah.” She sticks her cigarette in the corner of her mouth and reaches out, flexing her fingers grabbily. “Gimme!”

“God, take a chill pill.” He finds the little box and exchanges it for the lighter. He pretends to be busy trying to light his cigarette but it’s a show. Of course he’s watching her reaction.

“Whoa. Yuuri, this is -” Her eyes are bright, catching the glint of the porchlight as she holds it up. It’s a tiny book, probably the smallest he’s ever made, just a bit bigger than a postage stamp. His fingers had cramped working on it, because he refused to take the cowards way out and glue the signatures. Nope. He had stitched every tiny text block together, using the thinnest needles he could find and rice paper that tore if you gave it a stern look. It had taken a day for the cramps in his fingers to go away. “Whoa,” Mari says again, delicately flipping the pagers with the tip of a finger. “I take back everything I’ve ever said about you.”

“Uh, thanks, I think.” She grins and yanks him into a hug, the familiar smell of cigarettes and nag champa clinging to her hair. He relaxes into her shoulder. It’s nice to know that Mari will always treat him the same, purple nurples or not.

 

 

Finally it gets to cold for them, and they retreat indoors, Mari spraying some Binaca into her mouth before offering it to Yuuri.

“Okay, for one, our parents definitely know you smoke. For two, you’re thirty. What are they going to do about it?”

“I can still be polite about it.” Mari has never been polite about anything. “Come on. Mom’s been cooking all day.”

Yuuri follows her in. The lobby is, as usual, decked out in a homey sort of Christmas spirit. Fire in the fireplace, big tree with mismatched family decorations. There’s a small table set up with some seasonally appropriate crafts for sale: souvenir stockings, soaps that smell like cinnamon or spruce, and the guestbook. Yuuri had made it for the BB&B a few years ago. He flips through it and guesses that he’s got maybe another six months before they need a new one. Most of the guests are from Hamilton, Toronto, Buffalo. He always liked seeing who has travelled the farthest. There are a handful from Tokyo, usually people who are in the States on business and looking for a taste of home. He sees a couple from New Mexico, but nothing particularly impressive until he flips back to September. Jackpot: a couple from Tasmania.

Mari looks over his shoulder. “Oh yeah. They were nice. Retired couple, funny accents.”

“Staying busy, then?”

Mari shrugs, but the skin around her eyes goes kind of tense. “Pretty much. I don’t want to make you feel bad about doing your thing, kid, but sometimes…”

“Sometimes?”

“Sometimes the help would be nice, okay?” She looks sidewise, and Yuuri knows she hadn’t wanted to say anything. “Look, Dad messed up his back this fall and we had that hail storm. This pretty bitch -” she hooks her thumb at herself “- was on the roof with a hammer and a roll of tar-paper and no fucking clue what I was doing. Dad was on the ground yelling directions.”

“How’d that work out?”

“I turned up the boombox and let Morrissey keep him away.” She makes a show of examining her fingernails. “Look, it’s fine, we’re doing fine. It’s just things are tight sometimes and I just wish...Sometimes I wish I weren’t the only one still here, okay?”

“I’m sorry.”

She scoffs and smacks him lightly on the back of the head. “Don’t be sorry. If I could’ve hacked college, I would have gone, too. I just get jealous, sometimes.” She ruffles his hair.

“Still. You could have told me.”

“I don’t think any of us are real good at asking for help.”

That was true. “Well, you don’t have to ask. I’m volunteering.”

“Oooh. Well, then, Mister Fancy College boy, new time it snows, you get to shovel.”

 

 

Yuuri excuses himself to his childhood room where he finds that nothing has changed except that the guest lost and found seems to have been relocated to his closet, and there’s a file cabinet half-blocking the window. Same posters - Farrah Fawcett? Who did he think he was fooling? - same twin bed, same desk, same bookcase full of Star Trek novels and Ursula LeGuin. After the strangeness of the last month, it seems like everything at home should have changed with him but, no. He’s pretty sure that the bookmark in Cyberiad is exactly where he left it.

He pokes half-heartedly through his chest of drawers. One nice thing about coming home is always finding an article of clothing that he had forgotten about. Instead he just finds some mismatched socks and a pair of flannel pants. He stops after the one drawer, afraid of any more disappointment, and heads down to the kitchen.

“Yuuri! I’m making your favorite.” His mother always makes katsudon his first night back, but she still announces it as if it’s a surprise. She’s standing over the fryer, watching the pork cutlets sizzle and pop, her hair tied back with a red bandanna, Rosie the Riveter style.

“Can I help?”

“No, no. It’s almost done. Oh. I know! You can make a salad. Toshiya! Get him the bowl!”

“It’s fine, mom. I know where it is.” The kitchen hasn’t changed much, either, except that the sprayer in the sink looks like it’s new. “So, Mari said dad hurt his back?”

“Damn gutters!” Toshiya grouses from where he’s mixing up dough for the morning. “I’m fine now, and that sister of yours knows her way around a hammer.”

Yuuri catches Mari’s smirk as she walks past with an armful of dishes, “Guess all those years of Boy Scouts weren’t a total waste of time, huh?”

Yuuri still doesn’t know how they had convinced their parents to let them join. Yuuri had dropped out of it when he was 12, but Mari had loved it, getting all the way to Rover Scouts. She had always been the more practical of the two. “Can I use this cutting board?” His mother looks over and nods. While he chops, he goes on, “You know, I was thinking, I’d like to come home more this next semester. I could definitely help out on the weekends and the holidays.”

His father makes a tutting sound. “Don’t they need you at that job of yours?”

“I could work it out,” he says, surprised by the tremble in his voice.

“What brought this on, Yuuri?” His mother asks.

He can’t answer that. Of course he can’t, because the answer is that he died and he didn’t get to tell them goodbye, and it’s only some unbelievable twist of fate or magic or something that gives him this chance to see his family again. He just swipes his nose on his shoulder and shrugs. “I dunno. I guess I was just feeling bad that I hadn’t been around as much.”

“Well, you know you can come visit anytime. I’m sure Mari will find something for you to do.”

As it turns out, there aren’t any overnight guests, so they are able to sit down to eat together. Yuuri tries to savor his katsudon but, as usual, he fails and ends up wolfing it down while everyone else talks. Then he tells them as much as he can about what he’s been up to the last six months, and his family updates him on all of the small town gossip. Mrs. Scheider’s cat apparently spent the fall menacing their koi pond, which had almost ignited and intra-neighborhood feud, but the argument was rendered moot by a voracious bald eagle who had eaten all the koi and Mrs. Schneider’s cat. The Katsukis and Mrs. Schneider had toasted their fallen pets, and Hiroko had decided that water lilies would be lower maintenance in the pond anyway. Mari, meanwhile, was in the design phase of creating an armored vest for Vicchan.

He hears about Mr. Pritchard’s gourds, about a kid that he used to take piano lessons with, about how one of Mari’s exes got fined for “catching small fish,” about how his high school art teacher retired and opened a bar downtown. It is all so comforting and not life or death (unless you’re a fish or an old tabby cat) and Yuuri is warm and sleepy and happy and he is so glad to be here.

After dinner, he gives his parents their present, ninety-nine hand letter-pressed postcards depicting the old Victorian boarding house, its riotous summer garden contained by the old wrought iron fence. He had printed one hundred, but at the last minute had kept one back, scrawling the inn’s phone number on the back and dropping it through the mail slot at the bookstore on his way out of town. His mother squeals and coos over them, and his father sets them proudly on the souvenir table. Yuuri promises to print more next semester. Maybe he’ll do one for each season. He’s already regretting not starting with a winter one for Christmas.

They stay at the table late, talking and sharing a couple of bottles of Asahi, until Hiroko remembers that they have Sunday brunch tomorrow and orders them all to bed. Mari gives him a tight hug before slouching off to her apartment above the garage. His parents load him down with clean sheets and towels before sending him off to bed with yet more hugs, and Yuuri wants to cry at how close he came to losing all of this.

 

 

Yuuri isn’t sure what wakes him up. It’s only barely light and the world beyond his window is the sort of cold grey blur that means snow. He would happily have slept for another four hours.

“Yuuri! Don’t hide in your room, come help shovel snow!”

Ah, Mari. That’s what woke him up. He fumbles for his glasses and sits up in bed. He stretches on his way to the window. The sky is heavy and low, practically grazing the tops of the trees. It looks like they got a good 4 inches overnight. Yuuri groans and drags on a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt. He yawns his way down the back stairway to the mud room.

As he’s tying his boots, Mari hands him a shovel, “Thanks again, bro.” She’s wearing a cuddly looking robe and cradling a mug of steaming coffee. The he looks down and sees the jeans sticking out below the hem of the robe and realizes that the comfy getup is for his benefit. She’s probably off to stock the bath as soon as she finishes giving him a hard time.

He gives her a one-fingered salute, then zips up his parka.

As unpleasant as the getting out of bed process is, Yuuri actually enjoys being up early. He like the feeling that he’s seeing the world when it’s fresh. The old porch creaks beneath his boots as he walks around to the front. The sidewalk and stairs are buried, but he got lucky with the wind: the porch will only need a quick sweep.

As he crunches toward the end of the driveway, a flash of dark motion from the closest tree makes him look up. A huge crow takes off with a croak, knocking a powdery fall of snow from its branch as it flaps away. He watches it until the world goes still again, except for a single soft sound: footsteps crunching in the snow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes:  
> From the hymn "Blooming Vale." Text by Isaac Watts.
> 
> "O, were I like a feathered dove,  
> And innocence had wings,  
> I'd fly and make a long remove,  
> From all these restless things.
> 
> Let me to some wild desert go,  
> And find a peaceful home;  
> Where storms of malice never blow,  
> Temptations never come.
> 
> By morning light I'll seek his face,  
> At noon repeat my cry;  
> The night shall hear me ask his grace,  
> Nor will he long deny."


	13. Silent, and soft, and slow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Were you hoping for a transitional chapter with a lot of talking an no plot? Viktor takes a walk and is smitten.
> 
> The most important thing is probably that Big Vikchan meets Little Vicchan.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, I think more people were upset by the end of the last chapter than when I killed Yuuri. I didn't even really intend it as a cliffhanger, It was just time for a POV shift.

Yuuri’s hometown is the very definition of the term “quaint.” Viktor arrives early in the morning after the longest night of the year. He isn’t sure that he will be welcome. He feels out of place in the quiet lakefront town. For so many years, Viktor has felt like all his long life has given him is a closer acquaintance with death. He felt cursed, like the stink of death clings to him, clinging to his clothes like rendering fat or the odor of the tannery. Maybe this is why he has been drawn to the cities. It is easier to disappear, to blend in. Any of his mis-steps fade into the noise of the city, and the smell is hardly noticeable over the city’s own miasma of decay and violence. He is amazed that the residents haven’t spilled from the doors of their candy colored Victorians to drive him from their home, lest some of the perfume should linger behind him. Instead they sleep, hidden behind lacy curtains and the flicker of Christmas lights. There is no sound, no movement in the town but for the occasional squawk of complaint from a crow disturbed by his passage. 

His train had arrived in St. Catharines the previous night, and he had slept in a sweltering hotel room with a radiator that was stuck on at full blast. The room was barely larger than the twin bed, with a window at the foot at the end of the bed that would have opened into an air-shaft if it weren’t painted shut. He had managed to pry the window open and had tried to sleep with his head at the foot of the bed. A scant two hours later he had given up and left the room, walking through the night to Niagara on the Lake. 

It is a long walk in that still pre-dawn morning, plenty of time to wonder whether this is a good idea. Plenty of time to wonder whether a postcard with no message beyond a scrawled phone number is as clear an invitation as it had seemed the day before. He is here now, though, and he can be whatever Yuuri needs. If he wants a mentor, Viktor can be that. He owes Yuuri that much: as much of Viktor’s skills as he can pass along. Enough, with any luck, for Yuuri to protect himself. Enough to give Yuuri a fighting chance at a life at least as long as it would have been without Viktor’s interference. If that is all Yuuri wants from him, then he can disappear again. He can remove himself from Yuuri’s life as quickly as he had entered it. He tries to tell himself that it will be just as easy to remove Yuuri from his own heart. 

It takes him a while to find Utopia Bath, Bed, and Breakfast. He must have left the postcard at home. Once he locates the right street, though, it isn’t hard to recognize the home. Even with the garden out of season, it exudes the same hominess from Yuuri’s print. Surprisingly, several lights are already on, spilling gold out of the windows. The iron fence is wrought into decorative ivy. During winter it restrains a rattling mass of dry vegetation, rose hips and hydrangea leaves drooping over the fence and other, less identifiable humps of snow and dry twigs. Viktor stands across the street, sheltered beneath a maple as the snow slows to a soft flutter and finally stops. The eastern sky is just beginning to lighten when one last light comes on in a window tucked beneath a gable dripping with gingerbread. He was still already, but Viktor freezes, looking away guiltily when he recognizes the head of ruffled black hair moving around the room. 

It’s only a few minutes before the front door opens and a figure trundles down the steps, its shape obscured by a heavy jacket, stumping heavily in boots and swathed in a scarf. Even so, Viktor knows it’s him by the thoughtless grace with which he tips his head to look at the lightening sky. He can imagine the small smile that would lift his lips and crease the corners of his eyes. Viktor must shift or make some sound, because he startles a crow from its perch. It flies off, triggering an avalanche of snow from its tree. The motion startles Yuuri and he turns to face the road. A streetlight catches his glasses, hiding his expression. With one unconscious step following another, Viktor finds himself drawn toward him. 

Viktor doesn’t know what he expects Yuuri to do, which is probably a good thing, because Yuuri just matter-of-factly puts him to work sweeping the porch. That’s not quite true. First, Yuuri walks over and stands in front of him without a word, broom in one hand, and the other on his hip. Even through the parka, Viktor can tell that it is probably cocked what could be called either a jaunty angle or a coquettish one, depending on the perspective. His eyes are as warm as Viktor had imagined, but not without worry. He examines Viktor for what seems like an eternity before he says, “Eager, aren’t you?” 

“Yes,” Viktor says, because it’s true. He wants to pull that scarf down so he can see the teasing curl of Yuuri’s lips. He wants to feel the heat of Yuuri’s breath against the cold of the wind off the lake. 

“Good,” Yuuri says and hands him the broom. 

After a half hour or so of shoveling and sweeping, they are interrupted by a woman a few years older than Yuuri. She shares too much of Yuuri’s warm brown eyes and round cheeks to be anything but his sister. 

“Who’re you?” She asks unceremoniously. 

Viktor shrugs. 

“That’s Viktor,” Yuuri replies, without elaborating. “Viktor, this is my sister, Mari.” 

She gives him a look that is equal parts leer and warning and extends a hand. When he takes it, she squeezes his firmly enough to be an unmistakable challenge. When they separate, Yuuri gives them both a long-suffering look. 

“Did you tell mom and dad you invited a friend?” Mari asks, laying a completely unnecessary emphasis on the last word. 

“Have mom and dad ever, in our entire lives, objected to more guests?” Yuuri asks. 

“You have to get a room ready.” She pulls a cigarette from behind her ear and lets it dangle from her lips while she fumbles for a lighter. 

“God, I _know_ , Mari,” Yuuri groans in a juvenile whine that manages to be charming rather than grating. 

Mari turns back to Viktor. “You,” she turns her head to the right and exhales a long stream of blue smoke. Viktor freezes like a rabbit that sees a hawk’s shadow. “If you do anything to harm my little brother, they will never find your body.” 

“Um,” Viktor says. 

“It’s not like that, Mari!” Yuuri is protesting now and Viktor’s heart plummets until Yuuri sneaks an apologetic glance in his direction. 

“Of course it’s not, because this is absolutely the first time you’ve brought a hot guy home and none of your family remembers the saga of Vincent From the Soccer Team.” She bends over and stubs out her cigarette in a little mound of snow. “You can tell mom and dad whatever you want but you should warn them if he’s coming to brunch,” and with that, she disappears back inside. 

“So,” Viktor says after a moment of stunned silence. 

“Brunch?” Yuuri asks. 

“Yes, please.” 

He follows Yuuri around to the back door and into a small enclosed porch where he trades his damp boots for the pair of slippers that Yuuri offers. He keeps his coat on. 

“Sword,” he explains in response to Yuuri’s raised eyebrow. 

Yuuri closes his eyes for a moment, like he’s collecting himself, then nods. Viktor follows him up what appears to be a service staircase to the small room tucked beneath the sharp angles of the roof. Yuuri visibly relaxes as he closes the door behind himself, and Viktor can feel a little tension melt from his own spine when Yuuri straightens and turns to him with a smile. 

“I’m sorry about that. My sister - she likes to tease me and I didn’t know what -” 

“What to call me?” 

Yuuri nods. 

“What do you want me to be, Yuuri? A mentor?” 

Yuuri shakes his head. 

“A father figure?” 

“I’ve already got one of those.” 

“A lover?” 

Yuuri doesn’t answer except to move so that he is standing just in front of Viktor. He looks up, almost shy but somehow ferocious. “I want you to be yourself.” 

“You might not like me.” 

“You might not like me either,” Yuuri chuckles, “I’m kind of a mess, but I don’t know how to be anything else.” 

VIktor nods. He’s been hiding himself, pouring himself into the mold of whatever time and place he’s floating through, but it has become harder with every passing year. He has become more disconnected and the world is changing faster and faster. Movable type still seems new to him and yet he lives in an age where supercomputers that send men to the moon are old news. What a relief would it be to stop pretending, at least around one person. “I’ll try. So, how shall we begin?” 

“I think you’ll have to meet my parents.” 

“I’m guessing that I probably shouldn’t be too much myself around them?” 

Yuuri grimaces, “Probably not. I haven’t told them about, well, you know. You should probably leave your sword up here.” 

Viktor slings his duffel bag from his shoulder and shrugs off his coat. Yuuri flinches minutely at the metallic clanking. Yuuri might not be as please by his gift as Viktor had hoped. 

Viktor follows Yuuri downstairs, taking the main guest staircase this time. The bannister is wrapped in greenery and the air smells of conifers and of some sort of citrus he can’t place. A large Christmas tree dominates the sitting room but where a lot of establishments would have adorned it in color-coordinated, matching decorations, this one is covered in items that are positively reeking of sentimental value. It reminds him of Evgeni’s apartment. There are several reindeer made of clothespins and pipe-cleaners and various lumpy hearts made of some sort of dough. He sees one piece that looks like it had begun life as a wedding cake topper wired into the branches among the twinkling lights. 

A sharp yap and skittering of claws pulls VIktor away from his examination of a string of lights that look like tiny test tubes filled with boiling liquid in orange and green. A tiny poodle, the same brown as the gravy on his favorite salisbury steak, dashes and skids across the hardwood floor, tiny feet sliding out from under a fluffy body that vibrates with excitement. 

“Hey, girl,” Yuuri squats and ruffles her fur, “I brought you a new friend.” He looks up at Viktor, “I’m sorry, do you like dogs?” 

Viktor has to blink quickly. He crouches beside Yuuri, “I love dogs. I used to have one who looked like this, actually. Except bigger. Her name was Makkachin.” He holds out his hand so that it can be thoroughly licked and sniffed. 

“Well, this actually Victoria.” Yuuri notices his incredulous look and shrugs. “It’s weird, I know. Mom’s a big fan of Dallas. We mostly called her Vicchan. It’s like a diminutive.” Vicchan has settled down enough to let Viktor scratch behind her ears. She has bright little eyes that shine like black marbles and tiny red bows in her ears. 

“Yuuri-kun? How does your friend like his eggs?” Yuuri’s mother has the gentle brown eyes that both Yuuri and his sister share. “Oh, she likes you! You’re right, Vicchan, he does look like a sucker, doesn’t he?” Vicchan pants happily. “Our Vicchan is a consummate con artist, aren’t you you little scamp?” Vicchan flops onto her back and makes big eyes at Viktor until her starts to rub her belly. Yuuri’s mother claps her hands in delight. Viktor can’t help the laugh that bubbles up as Vicchan wiggles and snorts. 

Viktor glances up at Yuuri, who is trying to look serious but failing miserably. “Mom, this is my friend Viktor. I know I didn’t warn you I had anyone coming…” 

“Don’t be silly, Yuuri,” she waves him off and wipes her hands on her apron, extending one to Viktor. “If there’s one thing we have, it’s room.” 

Viktor straightens and gently takes her hand, lifting it almost to his lips, “Viktor Nikiforov. It’s a pleasure, Mrs. Katsuki.” He uses his best charming voice, and Yuuri sighs loudly. 

“Oh, you _are_ ridiculous. You’ll fit right in around here. But you can call me Hiroko.” She reclaims her hand and pats him on the head. “You-know-who would get a kick out of him, wouldn’t she?” 

“Yeah, we’ll go over to her place later,” Yuuri looks away quickly when Viktor tries to think the question at him. “Later,” he mutters. 

“Well then, Yuuri, you’re off duty for breakfast. You and Big Vikchan pick out a table.” 

He follows Yuuri to a place near the fireplace. With the warmth at his back and a plate full of a mushroom, ham, and potato hash that Yuuri called the Hobbit Special, it is almost too easy to get comfortable. It is a simple thing to pretend that he came here like any guest, to relax, to rest in a bath and walk by the lake, to sample the ice wine and stroll down the main street and kiss beneath the falling snow. 

Viktor knows that they both need to focus, and hopes that they can begin to work after breakfast before the heavy dense sense of comfort leeches away the rest of his motivation. 

Yuuri speaks up, “I’ve been thinking, about how we can do this, how you can teach me, I mean. Or, _where_ , I guess.” 

Of course. Viktor, who usually had a plan for everything, hadn’t even thought of where he would train Yuuri. 

“I used to take dance classes, when I was a kid.” 

“Oh?” Viktor is pricked to attention. That may be helpful. 

Yuuri notices and says, “Don’t get too excited. It’s been a while, and I wasn’t very good.” He shoves some potatoes around on his plate, then sets his fork down. “The point is, my old ballet teacher still owns the studio, and it’s huge. There’s plenty of space and she shares it with some kids I went to high school with. They teach gymnastics, so they’ve got mats and stuff there, too. If you think it’s a good idea, I could go over there and see if Minako-sensei would let me use it while we’re here.” 

“I think that sounds very convenient.” Viktor doesn’t know what he expects in response, but it isn’t the faint look of distaste that crosses Yuuri’s face, a delicate wrinkling of his nose. “What? Is there something you aren’t telling me?” 

“Oh! No, sorry, nothing like that,” Yuuri almost laughs. “It’s just with Minako-sensei, there’s a price for everything.” 

“That might be a problem,” Viktor frowns, “I brought some money, but the room here…” 

Yuuri dismisses it with a wave. “Not that kind of price. More of a ‘teach the elementary ballet class for me,’ price.” 

After they eat, and over Hiroko’s objections, Viktor and Yuuri help serve the rest of the diners. Viktor is slow and cautious, carrying no more than a plate at a time, finding that none of his considerable physical skills transfer well to waiting tables. Meanwhile, Yuuri dances through the door, piles of plates and carafes of maple syrup teetering in his arms. Viktor is beginning to suspect that Yuuri’s definition of “not very good” is different from other people’s. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That forgotten postcard will certainly never come up again. Also, I'm so sorry, I've been promising training, but Viktor just keeps talking to people. Next chapter, I promise. 
> 
> _Snow-Flakes_ by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
> 
> "Out of the bosom of the Air,  
> Out of the cloud-folds of her garments shaken,  
> Over the woodlands brown and bare,  
> Over the harvest-fields forsaken,  
> Silent, and soft, and slow  
> Descends the snow."


	14. The dancers at length disappear one by one

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> MINAKO!!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have the flu and you can have a chapter.

After breakfast, Yuuri gives Viktor the grand tour, even though the way that Viktor exclaims over every photograph and piece of art that line the hallways makes him self conscious. He finally manages to drag him away from a photo from some recital or other, Yuuri in mid-leap, making an embarrassing grimace of concentration.

“Come on, let me show you your room.”

“Wouldn’t it be easier if we just slept together?” Viktor asks, standing just a little bit too close. Yuuri begs the heavens for strength. A few weeks ago, he would happily have jumped into bed with the handsome, mysterious stranger, but now? Now, he has had a bit more time to think, and he has not even begun to process how his life has changed, is still changing. That doesn’t even touch the way he feels about Viktor himself. It’s a mess, a boiling stew of lust and fear and anger, and Yuuri has no idea what adding actual sex to the mix will do to the flavor. Or something. The soup metaphor may have outlived its usefulness.

Viktor steps back then and his smile fades. “I’m sorry. I thought -”

“No. I’m sorry. I’m not trying to lead you on, I swear. It’s just - I just need a little time to, I don’t know, get used to things, maybe? Can we just, I don’t know, get to know each other? Without the secrets?” He’s tense and he has to force himself not to look away as Viktor searches his face.

“I think that sounds wise,” he finally says, “Come, show me my room, then.” He looks nothing but pleased by the prospect and Yuuri doesn’t know how to feel. Oh god, did Viktor just mean actual literal sleep? Oh no. Of course, of course. Yuuri’s just being an idiot, nothing new, here. His cheeks are burning as Viktor hefts his bag and follows Yuuri down the hall.

  
  
  
  
A couple of hours later, Yuuri and Viktor pull up to Minako’s studio. He’s on edge for some reason that he can’t quite place. Sure, he’s about to start learning how to not get killed by the hordes of immortal swords-people who will try to behead him for the rest of his life, but that’s no reason to worry, right? He must be rubbing off on his companion because, as he parks, Viktor, who had been excitedly pointing out the small town sights along the way, has gotten quiet. He all but shushes Yuuri when he tries to asks if he’s okay.

VIktor grabs his elbow as they cross the parking lot, and Yuuri shakes him off, irritated. “What is up with you?”

“Are you sure about this?”

“I’m not sure about any of this, Viktor, but I don’t hear any better ideas.” He waits, but Viktor just eyes the door behind him suspiciously and adjusts his coat.

Yuuri’s anxiety has reached a new level, a humming, buzzing in his mind that seems like it wants to drown out all of his rational thoughts.

He shoves open the door and steps into the lobby.

“Hello? Minako-sensei? Nishigori?” He can’t hear anyone, but the front door wouldn’t have been unlocked if no one was here. He can’t see any lights from the changing rooms, but he thinks he hears something from the studio. Without a thought, he walks into the mirrored room. Before he can register what he is seeing, Viktor shoves him to the side and all but leaps in front of him, sword already drawn.

“Stay back.” 

Yuuri stumbles but catches himself. “Vitya, what the fu-” He trails off when he hears a familiar laugh. He catches a glimpse of himself in the mirror, eyes wide and face white as he scans the room for his old teacher. “Minako-sensei?”

When he hears the metallic scrape of a sword being drawn, he knows where to look. Minako is as beautiful as ever. In fact, she looks exactly the same as she did when he first began taking ballet lessons when he was in kindergarten. Come to think of it, she doesn’t look a day over 30, when he happens to know that Minako is older than his mother. How did he never notice this before?

“You know her?” 

“Of course I know her! She’s my ballet teacher.”

Minako snickers and slides her right foot behind, sword sweeping back in a deadly _port de bras_. “Hello, Yuuri. I see you’ve joined our little Game. I knew you had it in you.”

“You - you knew?” He feels like the air has been knocked out of him. “Vitya?”

Viktor sighs, but doesn’t move from his defensive position in front of Yuuri. “Some of us can sense a person who is likely to become an immortal.”

“So this was something that was already in me?”

“Yes,” Minako answers. “Why do you think I put up with so much?” She winks at him before cutting her eyes back to Viktor. “So, Yuuri, you sure about this guy?”

“Yes, of course. He’s going to teach me how to, you know, not die.”

“Hm. I think I’d like to see for myself, then,” she says, and then she’s moving, dancing forward so lightly that he can almost forget the deadly blade in her slender arms. Viktor dashes forward to meet her, clashing against her blade with his own sort of grace.

“Guys?” Yuuri squeaks, as they break apart and clash again, feinting and parrying and blocking and doing all sorts of other fighty things that Yuuri doesn’t even know the words for. It’s beautiful and terrifying and some strange new part of Yuuri has perked up and taken interest. They seem evenly matched; if one gains an upper hand, it doesn’t last long. Sometimes, Yuuri sees, or thinks he sees, moments when if one had simply pressed harder or moved sooner or a fraction of a second later, the match would have ended, sometimes bloodlessly, sometimes not. After he watches Minako dance away from yet another missed opportunity, Yuuri relaxes. He’s never had much interest in martial arts, no matter how many episodes of Kung Fu he had watched with his dad. Apparently that’s the sort of preference that changes when your life is about to literally depend on it.

Yuuri can’t quite say how long it goes on, but eventually, Minako steps back with a little twirl, then nods. “Okay then, boys. Who wants a drink?” She waltzes out of the room, assuming that they’ll follow.

“Oh, thank the gods,” Viktor murmurs under his breath, sheathing his sword and slumping against the barre. Yuuri elbows him. “I think it’s a good thing that she’s on your side.” “Me too.”

“Did you really not know? About her, I mean?”

“How would I know? I just thought she had really good genes, or maybe an _amazing_ surgeon. Immortal swordswoman was a possibility I honestly hadn’t considered.”

“Right, right. This is the last place I thought I’d find her.”

“Wait. You _know_ her?”

Viktor grimaces and replies shortly. “We’ve met.” He brightens, his face spreading into a wide fake smile. “Oh well. Small world, right? How about that drink.” Then he, too, sweeps out of the room, leaving Yuuri to trot behind him.

  
  
  
  
Yuuri has only been in Minako’s office a handful of times. He looks around with the same wonder and feeling of trespass as he felt the handful of times he’d been sent on an errand to the teacher’s lounge. She’s rummaging in a file cabinet when they squeeze into tiny room that looks like it started life as a broom closet. There’s already a space cleared atop the desk, which she fills with three chipped mugs and a bottle of Cutty Sark. She splashes the whisky carelessly into the mugs and passes them around. Viktor winds up with the one that says “I hate Mondays,” while Yuuri gets a Ziggy. 

Yuuri cradles his mug in his lap, not sure what to say. Fortunately, no one’s attention is actually on him at the moment.

“So, what are you calling yourself these days?”

“Viktor Nikiforov.”

Minako smirks, “That’s a good one. Suits you. Tell me, is our good friend Christophe still among the living?”

“Oh yes. I’ll tell him you asked after him.”

“Well, I never forget an ass.”

“His is quite memorable.”

And that’s how it begins. Yuuri is strongly reminded of interminable dinners with his grandparents: stories about people he’s never met, half of them told in a language he barely speaks. Minako and Viktor seem to have a surprising number of acquaintances in common and Yuuri wonders, yet again, exactly how old these people are that they can casually mention things like the tulip fad and slashed sleeves with the same disdain his parents afford Yuuri’s ripped jeans. He’s never been more grateful to have a drink in his hand. At least they’re getting along. 

Eventually, Minako remembers that he’s there, and they to work plotting out a training schedule that doesn’t interfere with any of Minako’s or the Nishigori’s classes. Minako insists that Yuuri spend some time dancing with her. She insists that it will be excellent agility training and Viktor agrees, much to Yuuri’s consternation. By the end of it, he’s also somehow been talked into leading the adult beginner ballet class. Which starts in a half hour. Yuuri hasn’t danced in months. This won’t be pretty, despite Minako’s assurances that all he’ll have to do is “look pretty and do some barre exercises.” She pours him another splash of whisky when he tries to talk her out of it. Eventually, he’s had enough.

“So, this has been great and all, not terrifying in the slightest. But if you’ll excuse me, I apparently have to re-teach ballet to a bunch of trophy wives from Toronto.” He stands stiffly. 

“One more thing,” says Minako, standing as well, suddenly more serious than he’s ever seen her. “I’ve been keeping this for you. Just in case.” 

She turns and stands on the rolling desk chair and reaches for the top of the bookcase. Yuuri leans forward when she rises on tiptoe and the chair wobbles. Viktor stifles a giggle and Yuuri wonders how many times he’ll have to get killed before he stops fearing everyday accidents. 

She returns to the ground safely, holding a long plain wood scabbard and a square box. Viktor leans forward with obvious interest. 

”Don’t get too excited,” Minako says. “It’s a good thing Yuuri’s handy, because it needs some work. It’s a good blade, though, and this box here’s the tsuba and some other bits. Do some research, you’ll figure it out.” 

“Why does this feel like a test?” 

“Because it is. I’m not handing down one of my family blades to you for shits and giggles, Yuuri.” 

“Your family’s?” 

“Yeah, well, it’s not like I’m gonna have my own kids, right?” 

Yuuri can feel Viktor go stiff next to him. 

“Oh, I’m sorry. Hasn’t he told you that part, yet?” Knowing Minako, she’s not sorry at all.

“Vitya?” 

“I was trying to find the right time,” Viktor explains with a pleading look. 

“It looks like this is the right time,” Minako chimes in and Viktor glares. 

“Right. Well, Yuuri, you should know. Immortals, i mean, _we_ can’t have children.” 

“Lots of us adopt. But it gets complicated. Hard, knowing that you’re destined to outlive your child. You can imagine.” 

“Oh. That’s, um, that’s not so bad. I hadn’t really ever planned on it for myself. Being gay, and all, adoption was kind of the plan anyway. Mostly I just see myself as a really fun uncle someday.” 

“Well, so much for my dramatic revelation,” Minako grouses. 

“I’m stuck on the part where you decided to pass on your family heirloom to me,” Yuuri muses, reaching toward the scabbard. He pulls the blade free and tilts it so that the light runs down the blade. Even in its storage mountings, it looks beautiful and deadly. He runs the ball of his thumb across the blade. Still sharp, no signs of rust. Viktor nods in approval and Yuuri slides the blade back into the scabbard. He opens the box next. It’s just a plain shipping box, but inside are several things in pouches of jewel toned silk. There are several pieces that he can’t make sense of but he recognizes the _tsuba_. It’s black with an embossed decoration of seagulls in flight. “I’m honored. Thank you, Minako-sensei.” 

“C’mon, kiddo. You know you’re, like, not like my son, but maybe, like, my favorite nephew or something.” Her eyes seem a little misty but, then, it is a little dusty in here. “Oh, would you look at that!” She claps her hands abruptly, “the Mommies will be arriving any minute.” 

“Right. Well, thank you anyway. I guess i’d better change.” 

“Got everything? Need a dance belt? I’m sure there’s one in the lost and found.” 

“Gross. I brought my own, thankyouverymuch.” He looks back at Viktor, who is still examining Yuuri’s disarticulated sword, looking pleased. 

He flashes a grin up at Yuuri. “Go ahead, I’m sure Minako and I will find something to chat about.” Minako grins, too, but it makes her look like a shark. 

Yuuri has a feeling that he’s going to regret letting those two spend too much time together, but since he only has fifteen minutes to change and remember how to ballet, he guesses he’ll just have to face the consequences another day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> From _The Dance of Death_ by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
> 
> "Quick as thought it was done! and for safety he fled  
> Behind the church-door with all speed;  
> The moon still continues her clear light to shed  
> On the dance that they fearfully lead.
> 
> But the dancers at length disappear one by one,  
> And their shrouds, ere they vanish, they carefully don,  
> And under the turf all is quiet."


	15. Theirs but to do or Die

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A training montage and a visitor. See end notes for some content warnings.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic may seem like it's dead, but like the characters, it's only temporary. Updates will continue to be slow and sporadic as I begin to grapple with deadlines for various bangs, but I promise to continue to update as much as I am able.

“Again.” With a groan, Yuuri lifts the bokken to a ready stance. Viktor can see the slight tremor in the muscles of his shoulders. “Minako has been telling me all about that workhorse endurance of yours. Don’t make a liar of her.” 

“Minako still thinks I have a future with a professional company,” he pants between each mock slash and parry. “She does not need to know that graduate students live on ramen and canned tuna.” 

“Why did you stop dancing?” Viktor asks. “You’re quite good.” 

Another slash and Yuuri reaches the end of the form, flicking imaginary blood from the blade as he returns it to an imaginary scabbard. “Quite good isn’t good enough. I was a dime a dozen danseur. Impressive enough for a small town, but nowhere close to competitive in the great scheme of things. 

Viktor disagrees, having watched through the cracked door of Minako’s office as had Yuuri floated across the floor, demonstrating a dizzying sequence of turns to his intermediate class. After his success with the adult beginners, Minako had turned over the intermediate class as well, declaring herself on vacation. “I think you’re quite impressive. Fifty pushups. Now.” 

“It wasn’t for me.” Yuuri’s gasps while Viktor lets himself enjoy the way the muscles of Yuuri’s back contract and unfurl with each repetition. 

They move to the heavy bag next. Yuuri struggles with this. Swordsmanship, at least the forms they’ve worked on so far, has had more in common with the choreography he’s accustomed to learning. Viktor is excited to see how he deals with the improvisation of actual sparring. Boxing, though, is a struggle for him, as is grappling. Viktor thinks he understands: it’s harder to separate these arts from the damage they are meant to do. It’s harder to pretend that he’s actually training for something else. As Yuuri lands yet another half-hearted punch on the bag, Viktor has the sudden realization that Yuuri isn’t taking this seriously. Not yet. 

Viktor comes to hold the bag in place, bracing himself against it. “Ten jabs. Right arm. Go.” Yuuri lets his head hang for a moment as he steps back. He lifts his shoulders and comes back. The bag barely quivers where it’s held against Viktor’s thigh. “Left arm. Go!” 

Yuuri does. 

“Not good enough. Do it again.” 

Yuuri does. 

“Plank. Up to your hands. Back to your elbows. Up! Down! Up! Hold it.” 

Yuuri’s hips quiver and his knees sink to the floor. 

“Oh, too bad! Back to the bag,” Viktor chirps at him, as Yuuri lets his forehead thunk against the floor. 

Yuuri’s exhausted and likely not too fond of Viktor right now. Good. Viktor doesn’t know how to survive without relentless determination and, even if Yuuri ends up hating him for it, he wants Yuuri to survive. Yuuri made him feel things for the first time in centuries and Viktor repaid him by bringing him into his world. The least he can do is prepare him for it. 

The next day they’re working on grappling techniques. Viktor has Yuuri in a rear choke hold and Yuuri is half-heartedly trying to escape. He’s having trouble figuring out how his weight needs to shift to pull Viktor off balance. Viktor’s mind is starting to wander - he should add weighted hip-thrusts to tomorrow’s workout - Yuuri was having trouble bucking him off when they went to the mat, too. Finally, Yuuri remembers how the technique is supposed to go, and Viktor lets him extricate himself. 

“Not good enough. Again!” Yuuri groans and doesn’t look at him as he turns around. They’re at some sort of a breaking point. Yuuri is drawing away from him, retreating to his bedroom in the evenings, sitting with his family, avoiding Viktor whenever possible. There’s no more chatting during their training. No more banter. Viktor tells himself that this is good, tells himself that he doesn’t mind. He wraps his arm around Yuuri’s neck, as close to another man as he’s been in months. Yuuri burrows his chin into the muscles around Viktor’s elbow. “Come on, Yuuri. You’re better than this. Do you want to die?” he asks, as Yuuri struggles to shift Viktor’s center. 

“Shut up,” Yuuri grunts, but Viktor tightens the hold as he taunts, “Your life depends on this. I didn’t think that you were so weak.” There, good, Yuuri drops his hips and Viktor can feel himself drawn off-center, “show me that you want me here. If you don’t show me that you want to live, I will leave. I have better things to do than to spend eternity training a man who doesn’t even want to live,” he whispers against Yuuri’s ear. 

WIth a movement so fast that Viktor isn’t even sure how he did it, Yuuri is free, ducking under his arm and spinning to face him, fists up. “I said ‘shut up!’” With a sickening crunch, Yuuri’s knuckle meet Viktor’s nose. 

“Ow.” Pain blooms from the center of Viktor’s face. He wipes his nose on the sleeve of his gi. He can feel the telltale crackling of the Quickening, already trying to repair the damage. 

“Ow,” Yuuri is shaking out his hand, watching as the sparks float across his split knuckles. He seems to come back to himself when he see Viktor’s face. His eyes go wide. 

“Okay, we need to work on that next.” Viktor takes hold of his nose and straightens it with a sound that turns his stomach. He’s vain enough that he doesn’t want it to heal crooked. Thank goodness for ballet studios and their mirrored walls. He spits a gob of blood into the trash can. 

“Oh my god, I’m so sorry,” Yuuri babbles, still wringing his hand with a grimace. He may have cracked a knuckle. 

“Here, let me.” Viktor takes his hand and feels around for the break. “Ready?” When Yuuri clenches his jaw and nods, he forces the knuckle back into place. It should heal right. Yuuri doesn’t say anything, just goes a little pale. 

“Thanks.” 

“That’s what I’m here for.” 

“You didn’t mean it?” 

Viktor must look as blank as he feels. 

“You said you have better things to do.” 

“Oh,” Viktor is suddenly tired. He sinks to the floor, legs out in front of him. “That. I was trying to make you angry. I really don’t have anything better to do. Or anything else. At all.” 

“What?” Yuuri sits beside him, legs crossed. 

“Training you, Yuuri, that’s why I’m here. That’s the only purpose I have right now. If I hadn’t met you, I - I’m not sure where I would be.” He can hear the sharp intake of Yuuri’s breath. “I was getting tired of winning. I had nothing to live for, no reason to keep fighting,” he looks up until Yuuri returns the gaze with those wide brown eyes, “until I met you.” 

“Why me?” 

Viktor can feel the smile quirking one side of his mouth as Yuuri’s reflexive protest. “Why not you?” 

“I just, i’m just…” He trails into silence and looks down at his lap where he’s twisting his hands anxiously. 

“Just what, Yuuri?” 

“I’m just me, and you are, apparently, like, a thousand years old. Why are you helping me? Is it just because you feel guilty for getting me killed - which you should by the way, i’m still mad about that - or do you think i owe you something? It seems kind of, i don’t know, uneven. It’s like you’re barely human.” 

This is not the first time the thought has crossed VIktor’s mind but it stings to hear it from Yuuri. “Oh.” 

“I didn’t mean it like that.” Yuuri reaches over and gives Viktor’s knee a squeeze. There’s no sign of injury to his knuckles, now. Viktor’s nose doesn’t throb anymore either. A lingering stuffiness is the only reminder that anything happened. “I guess I’m the same now, anyway.” 

“No. you can’t understand, not yet. You’re still so young, still connected to your life. It’s all of these things that i had forgotten. Things whose absence I had taken for granted: family, a place in the world, fear. You make me feel things that i had forgotten how to feel. It’s beautiful.” 

Yuuri withdraws his hand. “You make it sound like i’m a fetish.” 

“That’s not it. I’ve been plenty of people’s fetish. The exotic foreigner, the ancient immortal, the living legend. People who have wanted to love me, fight me, kill me because of what i am. You’re the first person in centuries who hasn’t looked at me and seen a battle to be won, a conquest. You just saw some weird guy at the bar.” 

“In my defense, _Norm_ , you are really weird.” 

“I suppose I am.” 

“One day, everyone i love will be dead and i’ll be really weird, too, i guess.” he winces. “If i’m lucky.” 

“If I’m lucky.” Yuuri stands and brushes off his pants. “God, this is so strange.” 

“You get used to it.” _If I’m lucky,_ Viktor thinks and takes the hand up that Yuuri offers him. 

Yuuri rolls his shoulders and nods, “Okay, so you were going to teach me to throw a punch.” 

 

By the end of the week, Yuuri’s stance is better, at least. He’s figured out how to use his hips to get some force behind his punches, and he’s starting to get the hang of blocking. Viktor hadn’t thought he could find anything martial challenging anymore but trying to teach, to explain is so much harder than the thousand years of muscle memory that he usually relies on. By the time they reach a well-earned soak in the baths on Friday night, he is just as exhausted as Yuuri. 

Some things cut through anything though, no matter how tired and how mesmerized Viktor is by the slow progress of water droplets along the graceful lines of Yuuri’s neck. Viktor has gotten used to the gentle buzz of Yuuri’s immortality at the back of his mind. This though, this is like a sudden influx of angry bees. 

Yuuri jerks to alertness at the same moment. Viktor climbs from the bath, and moves to the side of the gate, grabbing his sword. The cold bites his damp skin, and he wonders how much he will regret not stopping for his robe. He gestures at Yuuri, who catches on immediately, and starts to softly talk about the repairs that the onsen needs. Viktor loosens his sword in its sheath as quietly as possible and stands ready. He can hear the approach of booted feet and the buzzing in his mind reaches a fever pitch, just as the gate is flung open with a bang. 

“Hey, Old Man! Did you forget your promise?” 

“Oh, hi, Yurio,” Yuuri gives a sheepish wave from the bath. 

“So, no one’s killed you yet, huh, piggy?” Yurio asks, with surprisingly little venom. “Where’s Viktor?” 

Yuuri points past him, a hint of mischief in his gaze. Yurio spins and makes a sound like an angry opossum when he sees him. Viktor drops his sword and covers himself with his hands. That just increases the volume of Yurio’s grumbling as he grabs a towel from the bench and flings it at Viktor, as if the fluffy cloth will become a weapon through the sheer force of his will. 

“What are you doing, you old pervert? Were you really going to fight _naked_?” 

“Wouldn’t be the first time,” Viktor replies, wrapping the towel around his waist. “Have I never told you how I first met Christophe?” 

“Gross.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some Tennyson for us this chapter, with The Charge of the Light Brigade.
> 
> "'Forward, the Light Brigade!'  
> Was there a man dismayed?  
> Not though the soldier knew  
>  Someone had blundered.  
>  Theirs not to make reply,  
>  Theirs not to reason why,  
>  Theirs but to do and die.  
>  Into the valley of Death  
>  Rode the six hundred."
> 
> CW: during a scene of training, one character becomes frustrated and strikes another, causing temporary injury. Viktor is a demanding coach.


End file.
